Edward True, 28, of Moulton, said he helped count the votes and jotted the results down on a piece of paper to post to his Facebook page. He said when he checked to make sure the Republican Party of Iowa got the count right, he said he was shocked to find they hadn’t.
“When Mitt Romney won Iowa by eight votes and I’ve got a 20-vote discrepancy here, that right there says Rick Santorum won Iowa,” True said. “Not Mitt Romney.”
True said at his 53-person caucus at the Garrett Memorial Library, Romney received two votes. According to the Iowa Republican Party’s website, True’s precinct cast 22 votes for Romney.
“This is huge,” True said. “It essentially changes who won.”
True, a supporter of Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas), was one of three people tallying the ballots in Appanoose County. He told the Daily Iowegian that the county officials’ numbers matched his own and that “it’s the state’s numbers that don’t match.”
In a statement late Thursday night, Iowa Republican Party Chairman Matt Strawn said that the state Republican Party had been in contact with county officials and that the party “(does) not have any reason to believe the final, certified results of Appanoose County will change the outcome of Tuesday’s vote.”
“Iowa GOP rules provide for a two-week certification process for each of the 1,774 precincts,” Strawn said. “The Iowa GOP will announce the final, certified results of the 2012 Iowa Caucuses following this process. Out of respect to the candidates involved, party officials will not respond to every rumor, innuendo or allegation during the two week process.”
Even if the revised final vote tally were to shift Iowa into Santorum’s column, it’s unlikely that would drastically alter the dynamics of the GOP race: The slim margin separating the two GOP hopefuls — among the narrowest margins in history — has become a bigger focal point coming out of Iowa than which candidate narrowly emerged on top.
