These problem scenario examples use the March 2026 RTQG flowchart, the latest version I have. That was a primary election, so the examples mention some things that occur only in a primary election. However there are other things shown here that apply to all elections and can be mishandled by the RTQG flowchart.
Example 1 A woman had married, but she had not notified the BOE about her name and address change. Also, assume the photo ID check will fail for this voter.
* The RT PO puts the proper label on an ATV.
* For an unaffiliated voter, the RT PO marks out all ballot styles except for the voter's party choice. This may still leave an incorrect style because of a not-yet-processed address change. In fact there might not even be a valid ballot style for this voter at their new address, which is not being considered at this step.
* The RT PO marks the "Name on the label is wrong" box.
However the RTQG flowchart EXPLICITLY BYPASSES handling the address change (ATV marking) at this point. This can result in not handling the address change at all, thus leaving the ATV incorrectly marked. Instead photo ID checking is done.
* The label is now put on the ATV (left middle bottom block)
* If the voter is unaffiliated, some unaffiliated processing is done (leaving a possibly incorrect ballot style, per the note above). In fact this processing had already been done when the top middle block was processed because of the name change.
* The "No ID" and "Photo ID" boxes are marked.
* The remainder of the flowchart is now executed.
===> But the "Address on the label is wrong" box is still NOT marked on the ATV and will not be marked in the remainder of the flow. This eventually causes extra work for the HT to detect this exception. Nor are *ALL* of the ballot styles marked out.
===> Possibly an incorrect ballot style is left on the front of the ATV because the RT PO never got to the part of the flowchart that marks out *ALL* ballot styles when there is an address change. The address change could have caused a different ballot style for the registered/chosen party, or no ballot style at all if the registered/chosen party has no race applicable to the new address. Consider a split precinct and the voter moved from one jurisdiction to the other in that precinct, requiring a different ballot style for the new address.
If an incorrect style is left on the ATV (and the HT PO does not mark it out per my recommendations at the end of this document), the BT PO may incorrectly try to use what is still marked on the front of the ATV if they don't see that the HT PO designated a different style on the back of the ATV. Having the RT PO mark out all styles for an address change or party dispute is meant to avoid this. Yet the RTQG flowchart can remove this protection.
Even if the voter said they could retrieve a good photo ID outside the Voting Enclosure, per the flowchart's bottom middle block the voter must instead be sent to the Help Table. This is because the label was attached to the ATV at the beginning (name change). Once the label is attached, the voter is not allowed to leave the RT to get a photo ID since that would require storing the ATV somewhere, causing more complications. However the option of going to the Help Table early instead of completing the flow as described above would cause other problems since processing of other exceptions would be skipped (see below), as well as not handling the "wrong address" as described above. It would be better to just eliminate the YES leg (early sending to the Help Table) and have all photo ID failures use the NO leg, i.e., execute the remainder of the flowchart.
===> There may be other unmarked exceptions, e.g., party dispute, pre-printed exceptions (ID, P, F), or handwritten exceptions (A, T). The HT needs to discover and handle all these even though they aren't marked in the appropriate ATV boxes. The RT should have done all this, but didn't because of the early sending of the voter to the Help Table by the RT.
Example 2 A man says the address on his label is no longer correct; he had not notified the BOE after a move. His name is OK on the label. Also, assume the photo ID check will fail for this voter and he cannot retrieve a good photo ID.
* The label is now put on the ATV (left middle bottom block)
* If the voter is unaffiliated, some unaffiliated processing is done (leaving a possibly incorrect ballot style, per the example above).
* The "No ID" and "Photo ID" boxes are marked.
* The remainder of the flowchart is now executed.
===> But the "Address on the label is wrong" box is still NOT marked on the ATV nor are *ALL* of the ballot styles marked out. See the bottom of Example 1 for the consequences of missing the address change handling.
Example 3 A man says his name and address are correct on the label. However the party on the label is not what he expects.
* The voter says the party on the label is not correct.
* The label is now put on the ATV.
* The "Party Dispute" box is marked.
* The party dispute process is considered complete and the flow proceeds to the next step.
===> However the RT PO never crosses out the ballot styles on the front of the ATV -- just one in this case. All should have been crossed out to avoid later possible problems at the BT, as described in Example 1.
Many scenarios can lead here. The "Party Dispute" block is simply missing the "mark-out all ballot styles" instruction -- probably just an oversight, but definitely wrong.
Example 4 A woman says the address on her label is correct, but her name on the label needs to be updated. Also, assume the photo ID check will fail for this voter.
* The RT PO puts the proper label on an ATV.
* For an unaffiliated voter, the RT PO marks out all ballot styles except for the voter's party choice. Assume there are no party problems for this scenario.
* The RT PO marks the "Name on the label is wrong" box.
Since the voter has no photo ID to try to retrieve, the NO leg is used to reach the left bottom middle block and the flowchart produces the correct results.
However, as noted at the bottom of Example 1, if the voter said they had a photo ID to retrieve, it would be better to take the NO leg to get to the left bottom middle block. If instead the YES leg is used, as the current flowchart specifies, that results in an early sending to the Help Table and causes exceptions not to be noted on the ATV.
===> There may be pre-printed exceptions (ID, P, F), or handwritten exceptions (A, T). The HT will need to discover and handle all these even though they aren't marked in the appropriate ATV boxes. The RT PO should normally have done such marking, but didn't because of the early sending to the Help Table.
Example # There are many other scenarios in which the ATV is not properly marked.
===> Any scenario with "Party Dispute" means full ballot style mark-out may be skipped (see the "Party Dispute" block bug mentioned in Example 3). Other exceptions may or may not be correctly processed, depending on other things.
===> Any combination of "Name on the label is wrong" plus "photo ID check fails" plus any other exception means those other exceptions are never processed if the bottom middle block is used (the YES leg, sending the voter to the Help Table early).
===> There may well be others.
Adding this step at the HT ensures the BT (here or at a transferred-to polling place) gets an ATV that does not have incorrect ballot styles still listed on the front of the ATV.
Note that if the only exception the HT Official has to handle is a name change, the HT Official does not specify a ballot style on the back and so does not mark out the ballot style on the front. There will be only one style left on the front and it will be correct since the RTQG flowchart handles things correctly if there is only a name change exception.
A voter saying to the RT PO "I forgot my ID. Pretend I was never here while I go get it." should almost never occur, given all the reminders to the voter to bring in their photo ID. Yet having that "should-not-occur" option in the RT flow adds MUCH to the complexity and problems in the RTQG flowchart. The alternative of "Just send them to the Help Table" at the appropriate point is an easy fix. (See my flowcharts referenced above.) The appropriate "Send to them the Help Table" point is during Step 2, the photo ID check. Step 1 should have been completed; it does all the checks (name, address, party) and attaches the appropriately marked label to the ATV for the HT PO to use.