system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5.... why was the result of the Iowa Caucus wrong and why didn't they delay the announcement until they knew for sure?
gpt
**TL,DR:** Iowa has a pretty lax vote counting process, and there is a lot of room for missing and missreported votes. Only in a very close election does this matter. 

It may shock you, seeing the importance placed on Iowa in picking presidents, but the whole caucus is run about as shabby as a race for prom queen.

Individual precincts tabulate and call in their own number to the central party office, who places them in a spread sheet, and that's it. No double checks, no second record, the precinct captains are on their honor to duly report. These are the results you see on caucus night. The captains then send in spreadsheets to the central office over the next two weeks, which are counted to make the final tally. This 'gentlemen's agreement' system works, unless its close, then it breaks down totally in several ways:

1) On the caucus night, at least one precinct failed to call in their numbers, the two captains thought the other did it and went to bed. This lead to some hilarious late night phone calls to get them up and call  it in, because neither suspected it would be an 8 vote difference out of 100,000+ votes.

2) This lead to the initial count that had Romney at 8+ votes. But this is the unofficial result. According to Iowa republican standards the process of 'certifying' results takes 2 weeks.

3) One precinct captain relayed to the media in the following days after the caucus that he miss counted and his initial call to the central office was off. He accidentally gave Romney more votes, but reported he would send in correct sheets.

4) Several precincts actually lost their vote counts, only having made the initial call the night of the caucus. So the votes from the precincts could not be counted in the 'certified tally'

5) Adding up the miss reports and subtracting the missing votes gave a final count with Santorum ahead by 30+ votes. Initially the Iowa GOP tried to cop out by refusing to declare a final winner, saying it was a tie. But after some intense drubbing by the media for being cop outs, they gave in a certified Santorum as the winner. 

That's how it happens. Iowa will have to make some changes to their process in 4 years, less they want their caucus to become even more of a joke than it already is. 

**EDIT:** The 'lax' vote counting thing applies to how the caucus is run by the state republican party. The general is run by the state board of elections and is a much tighter ship, though still prone to failure from time to time: see Florida circa 2000.