The Iowa caucuses have long held an important role in the selection of the democratic nominee for president. Despite the state only having 41 delegates, its caucuses are seen as benchmarks of the support a candidate has going into the primary season, and can often make or break presidential campaigns.

For this reason, the Iowa democratic party should take its responsibility seriously. The benefit or detriment that the results can have for a candidate’s chances are extreme, yet once again the Iowa caucuses have failed demonstrating how obsolete it is. When the results of the primary were due to be released at 10:00 Monday night instead the public was discovering potential issues with the method the Iowa democratic party had decided to use for reporting precinct results — a mobile phone app. Confusion and rumor surrounded the caucus, and continue to which leaves the reliability of the results when finally released up for question.

The Iowa caucus has failed in the responsibility that Iowans claim they take so seriously. The democratic party failed to train its precinct captains in the use of the app they are supposed to use to report their results. The party failed to disclose who created the app in the first place, leading to rumor surrounding how reliable results coming through the app are. The party has failed to make clear, and transparent the errors that have occurred and what they intend to do to fix them, and most importantly have failed to report the results.

What all of this chaos shows is that the Iowa caucus is outdated. The party in Iowa has failed to take their responsibility seriously by completely bungling the release of the caucus results. It’s time that the Iowa caucus be done away with, and a new state lead the pack as the Iowa caucus has clearly demonstrated its incapability to properly manage its serious responsibility — and every minute the results are delayed only serves to confirm this fact.