America may be the oldest democracy around, and that means parts of its venerable electoral system might just be looking a little dated. On Monday night, America began the already odd tradition of paying attention to the equivalent of Puducherry's elections as if they could influence the entire country – an event known as the Iowa caucuses.
And then, as the results came in, it got even weirder, to the point that Hillary Clinton managed to notch up a few victories on the back of coin tosses.
The caucuses themselves involve complicated systems of proportional representation that eventually allocate a certain number of the state's delegates to candidates. Iowa is mostly important simply because it is first in the overall primary calendar. There are almost no other reasons for it to be as influential as it is.
As Andrew Prokop put it on Vox, "the state is small. Its population is overwhelmingly white. Turnout for the caucuses is absurdly low. Democrats don't even get a secret ballot. And vanishingly few of the delegates who will actually determine each party's nominee at the national conventions will be from Iowa."
Yet it comes first in the long process of America's election season, and so it matters, partly because everyone is paying attention to it.
On Monday, the Republican Party's process was reasonably clear, with the only significant oddity being the fact that Marco Rubio, who came in third behind Ted Cruz and Donald Trump, was declared the moral victor. This is because Rubio is seen as more likely to eventually win the nomination, ahead of more populist leaders like Trump and Cruz who don't have as much establishment support.
The Democratic race got weirder. Bernie Sanders, once described as an "independent socialist", notched up a stunning victory just by being neck-and-neck against establishment candidate and former secretary of state Hillary Clinton.
This alone was impressive, but the results for both of these candidates were so close that the party actually had to use coin-tosses to settle ties in some cases.
This is the technical policy that the Democratic Party is supposed to follow when the votes that have come in are inconclusive. In one case, the Des Moines Register reported that when the formula to proportionally allocate votes towards candidates (by way of delegates) left out one orphaned delegate in one constituency, officials called the Democratic Party's hotline, which recommended a coin flip.
And this process has been rather favourable towards Hillary Clinton, who apparently won all six coin flips that decided on delegates on Monday.
Limited-time offer: Big stories, small price. Keep independent media alive. Become a Scroll member today!
Our journalism is for everyone. But you can get special privileges by buying an annual Scroll Membership. Sign up today!