It’s a train wreck! Trump scoffs at rivals’ vote chaos
Democrats hit by app meltdown at launch of race for White House
DONALD Trump revelled in a Democrat ‘train wreck’ yesterday as his rivals botched the launch of their race for the White House.
The Iowa caucus – the traditional curtain-raiser in the battle to be president – descended into chaos when the voting system crashed because of the failure of a new mobile phone app.
Democrat officials admitted yesterday that a ‘coding error’ in the computer programme, which was intended to digitalise voting, was behind a long delay in the winning candidate being declared.
The foul-up in Iowa – the first state to vote on party candidates for the White House race – plunged Democrats into confusion, gloom and recrimination.
On Twitter, Mr Trump rubbed salt into the wound, crowing: ‘Democrats are stewing in a caucus mess of their own creation with the sloppiest train wreck in history. It would be natural for people to doubt the fairness of the process. And these are the people who want to run our entire health care system?’
War hero Pete Buttigieg – the first openly gay candidate to launch a major White House campaign – was in the lead after 62 per cent of the results were declared following a delay of more than 16 hours. Mr Buttigieg, 38, who is married to a teacher, served seven months in Afghanistan as a lieutenant in the US Navy Reserve and is a former mayor in Indiana.
Joe Biden, who was early favourite to win the overall Democratic nomination, was trailing in fourth in the partial results – behind Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth
Warren. Mr Trump – whose Republican nomination in Iowa was approved by a huge majority – twisted the knife as he prepared to deliver his annual State of the Union address early today.
He tweeted: ‘The Democrat Caucus is an unmitigated disaster. Nothing works – just like they ran the country. The only person that can claim a very big victory in Iowa last night is “Trump”.’
He retweeted video footage of a burning rubbish skip floating down a flooded river and pictures of disconsolate Democrat supporters staring into space at Iowa counts.
On Monday evening, Iowa voters gathered at more than 1,600 schools, libraries and churches to make their choice in a process that effectively signals the start of the election campaign.
As a prelude to one day allowing people to vote on mobile phones, the state’s Democrats introduced a system that used an app to tally results and deliver them to party HQ.
But it emerged yesterday that some officials had not been trained how to use the app. Many had trouble even downloading it from the internet.
When they were advised to phone in vote results instead, they found the hotlines were overwhelmed. Insiders said the app had been put together quickly in the past two months and not properly tested. Yesterday, paper votes were being counted by hand.
Former Iowa Democratic chairman Derek Eadon described the farce as a ‘system-wide disaster’.
Mr Buttigieg said as results started to come in: ‘ Iowa, you have shocked the nation.
‘By all indications, we are going on to New Hampshire [the next round] victorious.’ Former vice president Joe Biden initially said: ‘We’re feeling good,’ suggesting the Iowa results would be ‘close’. Mr Sanders, who was narrowly pipped for the nomination by Hillary Clinton four years ago, said he had ‘a good feeling we’re going to be doing very, very well here in Iowa’. He predicted: ‘Today marks the beginning of the end for Donald Trump.’ Mr Trump won the Republican Iowa caucus with 97.1 per cent of the vote. His impeachment trial is expected to end today with the Republican- controlled Senate voting to acquit him.
His theme for the State of the Union was ‘the Great American Comeback’ with insiders expecting him to boast he is the architect of a booming economy.
‘Stewing in a mess they created’