umbernhard
commented
2 years ago What @jonahkagan's proposing is probably the best way to handle it but that may not always be the way that corresponds to a jurisdiction's adjudication rules. I think we may need to dig into that a bit more.
Question for @ginvdr about how to handle these: I think the rules in various jurisdictions may differ on whether the presence of an invalid write-in vote would nullify another vote. I believe this may be a sticking point in Michigan, specifically?
ginvdr
arsalansufi
Problem
Currently, Arlo doesn't have any built-in support for write-ins. Instead, we recommend that audit admins add a "write-in" contest choice when setting up contests (see docs).
This has caused a problem in ballot comparison audits specifically, since a write-in may be adjudicated as valid (counting as a vote) or invalid (counting as an undervote). If the CVR has a write-in that was invalid but the audit board selects the "write-in" choice, it creates a discrepancy.
We need a way for audit boards to be able to easily specify if a write-in was valid or invalid so that we can correctly compare the audit board's interpretation to the CVR.
Proposed solution
Add an "Invalid Write-In" choice to the audit board ballot auditing screen. When this choice is selected, it should count as a vote for no candidate. If auditing a vote-for-1 contest, this is the same as a blank vote. If auditing a vote-for-n contest, the invalid write-in should simply be ignored.
This logic should apply for ballot comparison, ballot polling, and hybrid audits.
The audit report should show that the audit board selected invalid write-in.
Bonus: only show the "Invalid Write-In" choice if the audit admin added a write-in choice for the contest (e.g. if there's a choice that fuzzy matches the string "write-in" among the contest choices)