DEMS SAY TRUMP BACKERS FLOODED IOWA LINES
A hotline that was used by Iowa precinct chairs to report Democratic caucus results to the state party was reportedly flooded with calls on Monday from supporters of President Trump after the number was posted online, contributing to delays in the vote tallying process.
“On Caucus Day, the Iowa Democratic Party experienced an unusually high volume of inbound phone calls to its caucus hotline, including supporters of President Trump,” Mandy McClure, communications director for the party, told the Des Moines Register. “The unexplained, and at times hostile, calls contributed to the delay in the Iowa Democratic Party’s collection of results, but in no way affected the integrity of information gathered or the accuracy of data sets reported.”
Sources told Bloomberg that Ken Sagar, a state Democratic central committee member, told other party officials on a Wednesday conference call that a high volume of people called in and expressed support for the president. The number became public after caucus paperwork was posted online, Bloomberg reported.
NBC reported that the number was posted on the fringe website 4chan, along with encouragement to “clog the lines.”
Precinct chairs across Iowa were forced to attempt calling in their results after an app that was to be used by the party to tally votes malfunctioned. There were widespread reports of wait times of upwards of 45 minutes to get through on the phones and some precinct chairs said they simply gave up, went to sleep and tried again in the morning.
