Democratic Iowa Ballot Managers Deciding Who Wins Delegates With Coin Tosses

Uncertainty by Nicu Bucelei, licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0/Original

The drama unfolding in Iowa has had a lot of people slamming popcorn into their mouths as they watch this trainwreck unfold, but for Democrats, they’ll soon be running out of hair to pull out. Nothing seems to have gone right and to make things worse, many of the ballot wins seem to go to the winners of a coin toss.

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While this may seem strange, it’s actually time-honored tradition in Iowa according to MSN:

As the Des Moines Register explained in 2016, there are a few circumstances when a coin toss becomes necessary, but it usually means the caucus has gotten to the point where it’s ready to award delegates but two or more candidates have the same number of supporters. The winner of the coin toss determines how the delegates in each location will be divided up.

A lot of coin tosses can be the sign of a close race. Back in 2016, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders almost tied overall in Iowa and 13 caucuses were decided by a coin toss that year. This time, while official results are still being tabulated, reporters’ tweets suggest several caucuses have been decided by coin toss so far.

Those that have been decided include one between Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Elizabeth Warren where Buttigieg got the win…

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…Warren did pick up a coin toss win in Johnson County, however…

…Bernie picked up a candidate in Pleasantville…

…but Biden did win a coin flip against Klobuchar in Warren County…

…but Klobuchar did walk away with one that night thanks to a coin flip…

While this isn’t necessarily a new thing, it was met with disapproval by quite a few people due to the arbitrary nature of the decision making.

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It’s likely never been a huge deal before this, but thanks in part to the disaster that the Iowa Caucus has been, decisions via coin toss are likely going to be seen as just the icing on top of the disaster cake.

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