Urbandale's Caucus Results Hold: Romney Still Won Here

Urbandale's caucus results did not change with certified results released Thursday by the Iowa GOP — Mitt Romney won by more than 200 votes.

The changed Iowa total — which makes Rick Santorum, not Romney, the winner by 34 votes — is more likely a problem with poor training for caucus volunteers than defects in the Republican Party caucus system, said Brad Boustead.

Boustead has been the House District 40 Republican coordinator for several years, which basically means he has organized caucuses in Urbandale through several election cycles. 

On Thursday morning, he was listening to Iowa Republican Chairman Matt Strawn get skewered on talk radio for certifying caucus results that showed a new Iowa winner: Santorum.

Strawn has said some precincts did not turn in final forms of caucus results, or those forms weren't properly filled out. 

"If someone has messed up precinct results, "It's because the people in the precinct were messed up," said Boustead.

He didn't blame Strawn. He said it's the responsibility of the Republican Party in each county to organize caucuses and train volunteers.

He noted that sometimes can be "a herding cats situation." It can be hard to find volunteers, let alone train them. Boustead said in Urbandale "we trained like crazy."

Precinct volunteers were all trained for two hours at Boustead's house, he said. That's probably why Urbandale didn't have any problems with results. 

The process is set up to prevent "shenanigans" as he put it and to ensure vote counting is transparent and monitored.

You can watch a video on C-Span of the Urbandale Republican caucus at Gloria Dei Lutheran Church, which shows the counting and reporting process in the last half of the hour and 12-minute video.

"To have something be poorly-executed is possible," he said, "but we're not organized enough to have a conspiracy." 

Drake University political science professor Dennis Goldford, who co-authored a book “The Iowa Precinct Caucuses: The Making of a Media Event" said problems with accurate vote counting have long been associated with Iowa Caucus history.