Thread: Santorum finished 34 votes ahead of Romney in new Iowa tally

Santorum finished 34 votes ahead of Romney in new Iowa tally; votes from 8 precincts missing

By Debbi Wilgoren and David Fahrenthold, Updated: Thursday, January 19, 8:17 AM

Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum beat Republican front-runner Mitt Romney in Iowa caucuses by 34 votes, according to an official tally release Thursday, a reversal of preliminary tallies that showed Romney winning the contest by just eight votes.

Eight of Iowa’s 1,774 precincts failed to turn in certified results by Wednesday at 5 p.m., the final deadline, the state Republican party said, meaning that the official statewide count will never include those precincts' votes.

Post-game analysis of Iowa caucuses

 After what was widely considered an unfocused and bloated campaign in 2008, the Republican former Massachusetts governor is returning to the presidential sweepstakes with a more tightly knit team.

Instead, the history books will show the following results for Iowa in 2012:

Rick Santorum, 29,839 votes out of nearly 122,000 cast.

Mitt Romney, 29,805 votes.

“It’s done,” said a party spokesman, who asked that his name not be used. About the missing votes, he said: “We never got ‘em. We tried to track ‘em down, and for whatever reason, we don’t have them.”

Romney, in a statement, described the final results as “a virtual tie.” But Santorum’s campaign seized on the new numbers as a rare opportunity for the candidate to declare victory.

“The narrative that Governor Romney and the media have been touting of ‘inevitability’ has been destroyed,” Santorum communications director Hogan Gidley said in a news release. “Conservatives can now see and believe they don’t have to settle for Romney, the Establishment’s moderate candidate,” Gidley said. “There is a consistent conservative alternative . . . That candidate is Rick Santorum.”

Iowa GOP Chairman Matt Strawn, in his own statement, congratulated both Santorum and Romney “on a hard-fought effort during the closest contest in caucus history.”

Romney was eight votes ahead of Santorum in the preliminary results of the Jan. 3 caucuses--the much-watched, first-in-the-nation presidential nomination contest.

The official results for the remaining precincts were announced at 9:15 Eastern time Thursday, two days before the South Carolina primary and less than two hours before Texas Gov. Rick Perry, another GOP hopeful, dropped out of the race and endorsed former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

Because Iowa delegates are not allocated or bound by caucus results, or awarded only to the winning candidate, Santorum’s apparent victory will have little impact on his uphill battle to win the nomination.

But the new results--first reported before dawn Thursday by the Des Moines Register-- mean Romney can no longer claim to be the only non-incumbent GOP candidate since 1976 to win both the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation primary.

And the revelation that eight precincts did not report certified tallies, even though the race was so close, will likely stir new questions about Iowa’s idiosyncratic, but historically cherished, caucus process.

“Our goal throughout the certification process was to most accurately reflect and report how Iowans voted the evening of January 3,” Strawn said. “We understand the importance to the candidates involved, but as Iowans, we understand the responsibility we have as temporary caretakers of the Iowa caucuses.””

Santorum finished 34 votes ahead of Romney in new Iowa tally; votes from 8 precincts missing - The Washington Post

Something to note on Fox news when Romney was 8 votes ahead it was a win with Santorum 32 votes on top its a virtual tie, notice the bias, the media and our voting system Is corrupt under present conditions it would be difficult to hold a fair election.

How can you just say you're missing eight precincts and leave it at that? There has to be accountability in our voting process. Those votes need to be found ant tallied.

Originally Posted by MW

How can you just say you're missing eight precincts and leave it at that? There has to be accountability in our voting process. Those votes need to be found ant tallied.

Corruption,it's all through our voting system perhaps a couple steps above Mexico and other third world countries, dead voting, multiple voting, etc, without voter ID and other fraud stopping devices we will never have another fair election, simply too much money and people willing to commit fraud for there man.