Bernie Sanders declares victory in the Iowa caucuses moments after the DNC demands a recanvass of the results

Sen. Bernie Sanders proclaimed victory in the Iowa caucuses from his New Hampshire headquarters moments after Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez demanded a recanvass, or re-tabulation, of the results.

Almost four days after the caucuses took place on February 3, the Iowa Democratic Party still has not declared an official winner with 97% of the precincts reporting as of 2 p.m. Central Time due to a series of breakdowns in the reporting process and unexplained inconsistencies and errors in the results.

Because caucuses conduct two rounds of preference expression, or alignments, to determine which candidates are viable to receive delegates, the Iowa Democratic Party reported three sets of results: the initial votes from the first alignment for all the precincts, the results from the second alignment, and the estimated state delegate equivalents (SDEs) calculated from the results of the second alignment.

The results from the Iowa Democratic caucuses from 97% of precincts showed Sanders and former Mayor Pete Buttigieg neck and neck in the total vote count from the second alignment and statistically tied in SDEs