Adjudication FAQs

What is Adjudication? 

When ballots are scanned into Clear Ballot, the software looks at each oval, for each contest and, depending on the percentage the oval is filled in, a contest is automatically tabulated into one of three categories:

  • Vote
    • Meaning the vote was attributed to a specific candidate or option
  • Under Vote
    • Meaning the contest was not voted
  • Over Vote
    • Meaning more options were voted than is allowed for the contest

The process of adjudication is used to verify that Clear Ballot accurately tabulated votes to reflect voter intent. Manual adjudication is used when the automatic tabulation is found to not reflect voter intent. Two full-time staff, following the Vote by Mail Manual, will manually change the vote to reflect voter intent.

Example 1: A voter draws a line through an entire contest 
  • Automatically tabulated as an Over Vote because more than the allowed number of ovals were found to have been filled in.
  • Manually adjudicated as an Under Vote.
Example 2: A voter fills in two ovals but crosses out one of the choices 
  • Automatically tabulated as an Over Vote because more than the allowed number of ovals were found to have been filled in.
  • Manually adjudicated as a Vote for the option not crossed out.
Example 3: A voter uses a check mark, X or other mark to indicate a vote instead of filling in the oval 
  • Automatically tabulated as an Under Vote because no ovals were found to have been filled in.
  • Manually adjudicated as a Vote for the option with the mark.
Example 4: A voter fills in the write-in option but does not write a name 
  • Automatically tabulated as a Vote for write-in because the corresponding oval was found to have been filled in.
  • Manually adjudicated as an Under Vote.
Example 5: A voter writes a name on the write-in line but does not fill in the oval 
  • Automatically tabulated as an Under Vote because no ovals were found to have been filled in.
  • Manually adjudicated as a Vote for write-in.