There has been a chaotic first round in the official Democratic presidential race in the US, after results in Iowa were unexpectedly delayed.
Yesterday's caucuses in Iowa marked the official start of primary season - the months-long, state-by-state process which will see members of the party choose the candidate to face Donald Trump in the election in November.
With results due on Monday night local time, it quickly emerged that "inconsistencies" had been identified, meaning the official reporting of results will be delayed until later on Tuesday.
Officials insisted the process had not been hacked - saying they were instead manually tallying the results due to issues with the technology used for reporting.
Iowa Democrats spokeswoman Mandy McClure said: "This is simply a reporting issue: the app did not go down and this is not a hack or an intrusion."
In the absence of official results, a number of candidates offered differing perspectives on how the race was playing out.
Polls in recent days and weeks had put Bernie Sanders as the frontrunner in the state, and his campaign released partial internal figures - numbers which put him in the lead.
BREAKING: @BernieSanders releases internal caucus results showing us winning the #IowaCaucuses *with 40% reporting*
Donate to Bernie Sanders: https://t.co/z5YsYCkl8F pic.twitter.com/zTBoOdC2a9
— People for Bernie (@People4Bernie) February 4, 2020
However, Pete Buttigieg - the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana who is also seeking the nomination - claimed he was travelling to New Hampshire (the next state to hold a primary vote) "victorious".
He claimed: "Tonight, an improbable hope became an undeniable reality."
Democratic presidential candidate former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg arrives to speak to supporters at a caucus night campaign rally, Monday, Feb. 3, 2020, in Des Moines, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)Former vice president Joe Biden, meanwhile, said "we feel good about where we are" - although partial and preliminary figures from Iowa suggested the national frontrunner was lagging behind Sanders, Buttigieg and Elizabeth Warren.
Senator Warren herself suggested the results in Iowa "were too close to call" as she arrived in New Hampshire in the early hours of Tuesday morning.
US President Donald Trump, meanwhile, described the Democrats' caucuses as an "unmitigated disaster".
