The Iowa caucuses, the first night of the election cycle that Democratic Party voters get to cast actual votes, has turned into a complete disaster.
As the results of Monday night’s caucuses continued to be delayed, those watching CNN caught a local Democratic Party official hanging up the phone on a distraught precinct secretary who had been on hold for almost an hour. Take a look:
CNN got the caucus secretary from the precinct on the phone for an interview. He was on hold for over an hour, waiting to report his results. During the interview, someone picked up, but because he was talking to Wolf Blitzer, he was hung up on. Unreal. pic.twitter.com/DZoLSpjZto
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) February 4, 2020
As the clip above shows, Shawn Sebastian, a precinct secretary from Story County, joins CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer over the phone and tries to contain his palpable frustration with how the evening has unfolded.
“Shawn Sebastian is joining us right now from Story County, he’s a precinct secretary out there, what can you tell us about this delay in getting any results Shawn?” Wolf Blitzer begins.
According to Shawn, the app that the Iowa Democratic Party promoted as a means to report the election results turned out to be a complete failure.
“Well, Wolf, I have been on hold for over an hour with the Iowa Democratic Party,” a noticeably miffed Shawn tells the CNN host. “They tried to promote an app to report the results. The app, by all accounts, just doesn’t work. So we’ve been recommended to call into the hotline. And the hotline has not been responsive.”
“Have you gotten any explanation at all as to what’s going on?” responds Blitzer.
“No, I have not. I’m just waiting on hold and doing my best to report the results,” says Shawn.
It was then, after having waited for over an hour, that the Iowa Democratic Party official answered the phone. It did not go how Shawn expected.
“Hello. … They hung up on me. They hung up on me. I’ve got to get back to being on hold,” Shawn says as Wolf Blitzer expresses sympathy for his unfortunate situation.
Shawn’s frustration with the Iowa Democratic Party’s gross incompetence resulted in him reporting the election results on Twitter:
I am the caucus secretary for Story County Precinct 1-1. I’ve been on hold for over an hour to report the results. We have 6 delegates.
First Alignment
Sanders – 111Warren- 82
Buttigieg 47DelegatesSanders – 2
Warren – 2
Buttigieg 2
I am the caucus secretary for Story County Precinct 1-1. I've been on hold for over an hour to report the results. We have 6 delegates
First Alignment@BernieSanders – 111@ewarren – 82@PeteButtigieg – 47
Delegates
Sanders – 2
Warren – 2
Buttigieg 2Here's how it happened 1/
— Shawn Sebastian 🐺🐴 (@shawnsebastian) February 4, 2020
On another panel, Van Jones characterized Shawn’s predicament as a “debacle.”
“They’re just starting to tweet out their results,” said Van Jones. “This is starting to look like a debacle.”
On CNN's panel, @VanJones68 says a caucus secretary from a precinct is tweeting out results as the DNC struggles to report the numbers: "This is starting to look like a debacle." pic.twitter.com/9NPhJIGdGt
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) February 4, 2020
Reporter Glenn Greenwald said about the moment, “This inspires so much confidence — a caucus secretary having to report the results over Twitter because no Democratic official will take his call and he doesn’t know what else to do.
Republicans on social media largely seized the moment to troll Democrats.
“BREAKING: While Democrats can’t even figure out how to count their votes or use a simple app, [President Trump] has achieved RECORD turnout in the Iowa Caucus for an incumbent president Americans are fired up to re-elect Trump. Meanwhile Democrats are left confused. Incredible,” tweeted TPUSA’s Charlie Kirk.
“The Democrats said if Trump wasn’t impeached, he would steal the election. It’s already begun. In Iowa,” tweeted Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief Ben Shapiro.