JOHNSTON, Iowa (AP) — U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley cautioned Friday that Iowa could lose its position hosting the nation's kickoff presidential caucuses unless changes are made to security and the reporting of results.
The Iowa Republican, speaking at a taping of Iowa Public Television's "Iowa Press" program, said party officials need to do all they can to avoid a repeat of this year's caucuses, when problems led to no official winner being named in the close contest.
Grassley suggested the party start working now to have the improvements ready in time for the 2016 primary season.
"There should be new procedures from the standpoint of making sure that the paper ballots are secure, I think that's the most important thing, and a more secure system for the reporting from precinct to precinct to headquarters," Grassley said.
The state's senior elected Republican said GOP officials should put more focus on fixing procedures for future caucuses instead of complaining about mistakes he conceded were made this year.
"It's like crying over spilled milk," he said. "There are things that weren't right about it, so I say look to the future. Let's correct what was wrong and move on."
The Iowa GOP initially declared Mitt Romney the winner of the Jan. 3 caucuses by eight votes, but after the certification process was completed this week, officials announced Rick Santorum had won among the votes that were properly counted. Officials conceded that because not all votes could be counted because of various problems, they couldn't name a winner.
Grassley conceded the confusion has hurt the Iowa Republican Party's reputation.
"If you listen to the news recently, the national news, they certainly want to give a black eye," Grassley said. "We better concentrate on a couple of things — like whatever made it so eight precincts didn't report. We need to correct that, and we better start looking to the future and 2016."
State Republican leaders said the eight precincts didn't file certified vote counts by the deadline Wednesday, and votes in those precincts weren't counted. They listed reasons including local officials forgetting to mail in the form before they went on vacation and backers of various candidates taking the document to report results and not bringing it back.
Though party officials said they certified results from 1,766 of the state's 1,774 precincts, the missing precincts could have made a crucial difference, because party leaders said Santorum's margin was only 34 votes.
Grassley pointed out the importance of retaining the caucuses for the state, which gets months of attention and speaking engagements from candidates as a result. In the Democratic caucuses in 2008, Barack Obama upset Hillary Clinton in Iowa — and Grassley said Obama wouldn't have been elected president without that victory.
Grassley was also asked about the flood of advertising in the days leading up to the caucuses, much of it funded by super PACs formed on behalf of the various candidates. He said he is concluding that campaign finance laws aren't working and ought to be scrapped.
"I've come to the conclusion that people are going to find legal ways to get money into political activity of both parties," Grassley said. "What we need to do is abandon the laws we have now and make sure that total transparency is the rule."
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