Buttigieg Isn't Quite Buying the Nevada Vote Count

Pete Buttigieg's campaign has a few requests of a Nevada State Democratic Party "in light of material irregularities" in state caucuses still being tallied, CNN reports. The campaign asks the party to "release early vote and in-person vote totals by precinct," "correct any outstanding second alignment errors identified by presidential campaigns," and "explain anomalies in the data." Team Buttigieg is the first to doubt the Nevada results that—with 60% of precincts counted—have Sen. Bernie Sanders ahead with a crushing 46%, followed by Joe Biden (19.6%), Buttigieg (15.3%), Sen. Elizabeth Warren (10.1%), and Sen. Amy Klobuchar (4.8%), per the New York Times.

So this is about challenging Biden for second rather than Sanders for first, as the Buttigieg letter makes clear. But does it hold any water? Politico notes there's been talk of some precinct volunteers and voters getting confused about how Nevada's early voting was included in individual precinct results. It was also the state caucuses' first try at early voting, and nearly 75,000 took part. Meanwhile, state party official Molly Forgey has responded thusly to the Buttigieg letter: "We never indicated we would release a separate breakdown of early vote and in-person attendees by precinct and will not change our reporting process now," she writes in part. "As laid out in our recount guidance, there is a formal method for requesting a challenge of results." (More Nevada caucus stories.)