# Ballot Marking Validity Crosswalk [[How a Ballot Is Counted]] found that every federal command in the tabulation lane is a command that a rule merely **exist**. The sharpest of them is 52 U.S.C. § 21081(a)(6), one sentence long: "Each State shall adopt uniform and nondiscriminatory standards that define what constitutes a vote and what will be counted as a vote for each category of voting system used in the State." Congress required fifty definitions and specified the content of none. This map is the fifty answers — what actually counts as a mark on an American ballot, and where the rule saying so lives. The queue item commissioning this map was built on a sharpening from [[Post-Election Audit Crosswalk]] and [[Recount Trigger Crosswalk]]: a hand-count audit or recount has to apply the state's definition of a vote, so the accuracy of every audit design is bounded above by a standard no federal instrument writes. That is correct, and it understates the problem in one specific way, which is the finding. **The standard is addressed to the wrong reader.** Every state's mark rule is a rule for a human being looking at a ballot. On most American ballots the first reader is a scanner counting dark pixels in the oval against a threshold, and that threshold decides which ballots a human ever sees. So the state's legal standard is not the standard that resolves most ambiguous ballots — it is the **appellate** standard, applied only to the machine's referrals, and nothing in it governs the referral decision. One state closes that gap, and it is the exception that proves the rule. **Georgia's Rule 183-1-15-.02 writes the scanner's sensitivity into law**: 20% or more fill of the target is a vote, less than 10% is not a vote, and 10% to just under 20% flags the ballot for a vote review panel. No other state found here regulates the machine's threshold at all; the NIST study of marginal marks reports that commercial scanners count dark pixels against values that are **proprietary and unstated**, and that "no two sensors are identical." Georgia's number also sits oddly against the only other numbers in American law on this subject, which are Kentucky's and Florida's "majority of the oval" — addressed to the human. The legal thresholds for the identical physical fact therefore run from **10% to more than 50%, a factor of five**, and they do not govern the same reader. The second finding is that the fifty states do not disagree at the margin. They disagree at the center, on the simplest possible case: **one small mark inside one oval and nothing else on the ballot.** Washington says marks in the target area "shall be counted as valid votes" subject to stray-mark exceptions. New York says a hesitation mark such as a dot in the target "shall not be considered a valid mark unless it is demonstrated that the voter consistently marked" that way. Michigan instructs that a stray mark inside the target is **invalid** and must be compared against the rest of the ballot. Same ballot, three answers, and this is not an edge case — it is the modal contested ballot. The third finding is about instruments rather than content. HAVA told each state to **adopt** a standard and said nothing about by what means, so in most states the definition of a vote is **not legislation**: it is an administrative rule, a bureau instruction sheet, or a numbered memo. Which means that in most of the country, what counts as a vote is revisable without a legislature, by the same office that administers the election — and revisable in an election year. ⚑ Washington did exactly that in 2026, and the amendment takes effect **1 January 2027**, two months after the election it was clarified for. > [!note] How to read this crosswalk > `■` marks a part · `▸` marks a tier, column or lane · `◉` marks the rule's instrument (statute · rule · directive · none) · `%` marks an express numeric threshold · `✓` marks a mark type counted · `✗` marks a mark type not counted · `◇` marks who decides · `⊘` marks a duty or rule that does not exist · `✱` marks the structural point of a block · `⚑` marks something that **changed for or after November 2026** · `◈` marks **a count that is a definitional artifact rather than a fact**, explained in the Notes · `†` marks **a figure taken from the primary instrument against a tracker that disagrees** · `[bracketed]` notes are dated caveats. Everything inside the fence is a **statute, a rule, a threshold or a state** — **no current officeholder is named anywhere on this map**, by design, so it stays true as seats turn over on 3 November 2026. ``` BALLOT MARKING VALIDITY CROSSWALK — what counts as a vote, who decides, and why "a majority of the oval" and "20% of the oval" are both the law (as of 6 October 2026) │ Legend: ▸ tier / column ◉ instrument % express numeric threshold │ ✓ counted ✗ not counted ◇ who decides ⊘ does not exist │ ⚑ changed for or after Nov 2026 ◈ definitional artifact │ † primary instrument over tracker │ │ THE ONE-LINE VERSION: THE STANDARD IS WRITTEN FOR A HUMAN AND THE FIRST READER │ IS A MACHINE. One state regulates the machine's threshold; the rest leave it to │ the vendor. Read Part A, then Part B before trusting any "what counts as a vote" │ summary — including the forty-eight-state count in Part E. │ ■ PART A — THE FEDERAL COMMAND, IN FULL │ ├─▸ 52 U.S.C. § 21081(a)(6) — ONE SENTENCE, QUOTED ENTIRE: │ "Each State shall adopt uniform and nondiscriminatory standards that define │ what constitutes a vote and what will be counted as a vote for each category │ of voting system used in the State." │ ✱ IT COMMANDS THE EXISTENCE OF A RULE AND NOT ITS CONTENT. Compare § 21081(a)(5), │ which freezes the permitted ERROR RATE by cross-reference to FEC standards │ "in effect on October 29, 2002" — Congress was willing to fix a number for │ the machine's accuracy and unwilling to fix one for what the machine is │ reading. The accuracy standard is quantitative and twenty-four years stale; │ the validity standard is qualitative and perpetually current. │ ✱ "FOR EACH CATEGORY OF VOTING SYSTEM" is the sleeper clause. A state running │ ballot-marking devices in person and hand-marked paper by mail owes TWO │ standards, and the mark rules are inert as to the first category, because a │ device-printed ballot cannot be ambiguous. See Part F. │ ├─▸ ⊘ WHAT § 21081(a)(6) DOES NOT REQUIRE: a fill threshold · a list of acceptable │ marks · uniformity ACROSS states · uniformity between a state's own categories │ of system · any particular instrument · publication · any review of the │ standard's adequacy by any federal body. The Election Assistance Commission │ certifies equipment and does not approve or collect these standards. │ └─▸ ◇ WHO ENFORCES IT: the Attorney General, by civil action for declaratory or injunctive relief [52 U.S.C. § 21111]. There is no express private right of action in Title III. No reported enforcement action against a state's (a)(6) standard was located in the record — recorded as [unconfirmed] rather than as a finding of absence. See Note 10. │ ■ PART B — THE THRESHOLD, AND THE READER IT IS ADDRESSED TO │ ├─▸ THE MACHINE THRESHOLD, WRITTEN INTO LAW ... ONE STATE │ GEORGIA ........ % scanners "shall be configured" so that: │ ≥20% fill of the target .......... IS a vote │ <10% fill of the target .......... is NOT a vote │ ≥10% and <20% fill ............... FLAGGED for adjudication │ and a flagged ballot counts if, "in the opinion of the vote │ review panel, the voter has clearly and without question │ indicated the candidate" │ [Ga. Comp. R. & Regs. r. 183-1-15-.02, eff. 13 Nov 2003, │ last amended 14 Oct 2020; auth. O.C.G.A. §§ 21-2-2, 21-2-31, │ 21-2-133, 21-2-439, 21-2-483 — promulgated by the │ Georgia State Election Board, not the legislature] │ ✱ THE ONLY PLACE IN AMERICAN ELECTION LAW FOUND HERE WHERE THE │ STATE TELLS THE SCANNER WHAT A VOTE IS. Everywhere else the │ state tells a human what a vote is and the scanner decides │ which humans ever get asked. │ ├─▸ THE HUMAN THRESHOLD, EXPRESS ... TWO STATES │ KENTUCKY ....... % "the majority of an oval, box, or space designating a │ candidate or question choice is filled in" │ [31 KAR 6:030; auth. KRS 117.015(1)(a) AND 52 U.S.C. │ § 21081(a)(6) — the rule cites the federal command as its │ own authority, which is how most of these were written] │ FLORIDA ........ % "fills in more than half of the vote target" satisfies the │ General Rule; a target filled entirely or more than half is a │ valid vote NOTWITHSTANDING stray marks elsewhere │ [DS-DE 420, r. 1S-2.027, Fla. Admin. Code] │ └─▸ ⊘ NO EXPRESS THRESHOLD OF ANY KIND ... THE REST, INCLUDING EVERY LARGE STATE BUT FLORIDA AND GEORGIA → WASHINGTON ..... marks in the target "shall be counted as valid votes, with the exceptions below"; a mark partly outside counts "if most of the mark is in the target area and intent can clearly be determined" [WAC 434-261-086] → NEW YORK ....... "properly filled in voting position targets" — the word "properly" doing all the work, with no number behind it [9 NYCRR 6210.13] → CALIFORNIA ..... "consistently filling in less than the entire voting position target" is valid — an express rule that a partial fill counts and an express refusal to say how partial [2 CCR §§ 20280.1–20284] → MINNESOTA ...... "a ballot shall not be rejected for a technical error that does not make it impossible to determine the voter's intent" [Minn. Stat. § 204C.22 subd. 1] ✱ SO THE FOUR NUMBERS IN AMERICAN LAW ON THIS SUBJECT ARE 10%, 20%, "MORE THAN HALF" AND "A MAJORITY" — a factor of five between the smallest and the largest — AND THE TWO SMALL ONES GOVERN A MACHINE WHILE THE TWO LARGE ONES GOVERN A PERSON. A 30%-filled oval is a counted vote in Georgia on the machine's own reading and is below the stated threshold in Kentucky, where it has to qualify instead under one of the alternative-mark clauses in Part C. │ ■ PART C — THE MARK TYPES, AND WHERE THE STATES SPLIT AT THE CENTER │ ├─▸ THE CASE THAT DIVIDES THEM: ONE SMALL MARK INSIDE ONE TARGET, NOTHING ELSE ON │ THE BALLOT TO COMPARE IT TO │ WASHINGTON ..... ✓ a mark in the target area is a valid vote, excepting │ "obvious stray marks, hesitation marks, parts of written │ notes" [WAC 434-261-086] │ NEW YORK ....... ✗ "a hesitation mark such as a dot in the voting position │ target area shall not be considered a valid mark unless it │ is demonstrated that the voter consistently marked his or │ her ballot in such a manner" [9 NYCRR 6210.13] │ MICHIGAN ....... ✗ a stray mark within the target area is invalid; the official │ "must compare disputed marks with other marks on the ballot" │ [Bureau of Elections instruction, citing MCL 168.799a(3), │ 168.803(2)] │ ✱ ALL THREE RULES RESOLVE THE CASE BY CONSISTENCY, AND THE CASE IS DEFINED BY │ HAVING NOTHING TO BE CONSISTENT WITH. A single-contest ballot, a ballot where │ the voter voted once and skipped the rest, and a recount of one contest are │ all this case. Washington's default is count; New York's and Michigan's │ default is do not count. That is the whole disagreement, in the modal │ contested ballot, between three states that all recite voter intent. │ ├─▸ ✓ COUNTED ALMOST EVERYWHERE, WITH ONE RECURRING CONDITION — CONSISTENCY │ X · CHECK MARK · CROSS · PLUS SIGN · ASTERISK · STAR, inside a single target │ FLORIDA ...... ✓ if "the voter consistently uses" that mark form │ KENTUCKY ..... ✓ "an 'X', a check mark, a plus sign, an asterisk, a star, or │ any other mark indicating the intent" — no consistency │ condition stated │ CALIFORNIA ... ✓ "a distinctive mark, such as (X) or (√) or (←), inside the │ associated voting position target", consistently placed │ NEW YORK ..... ✓ "cross mark 'X', a checkmark, circles, completed open arrow, │ or any other clear indication of the voter's choice" │ MICHIGAN ..... ✓ "a cross or checkmark appearing in the predefined target │ area is not considered a stray mark and is a valid vote EVEN │ IF the voter does not consistently mark the entire ballot" │ ✱ MICHIGAN IS THE INVERSION AND IT IS DELIBERATE: a check mark │ in the oval needs no consistency, a faint dot in the same │ oval is a stray mark and needs the whole ballot. The state │ is sorting by the mark's FORM, not by its darkness, which is │ the opposite of what the scanner in front of it is doing. │ ├─▸ ✓ THE CIRCLED OR UNDERLINED NAME — the mark a scanner cannot see at all │ FLORIDA ...... ✓ circling or underlining the target, the candidate's NAME, or │ the party abbreviation, applied consistently │ KENTUCKY ..... ✓ the oval circled or underlined, OR "the candidate's name or │ the question choice is circled or underlined" │ NEW YORK ..... ✓ "circles" among the valid marks │ MICHIGAN ..... ⊘ not addressed in the bureau instruction located here │ GEORGIA ...... ⊘ not addressed as a category in r. 183-1-15-.02 │ ✱ A CIRCLED NAME PUTS ZERO DARK PIXELS IN THE TARGET. In the three states │ above it is unambiguously a vote and in every state it is unreadable by the │ tabulator, so it is a vote that EXISTS ONLY IF A HUMAN LOOKS — and in a │ precinct-count jurisdiction the humans who look are looking at the pile the │ scanner rejected, which this ballot joins as an undervote rather than as an │ error. See Part D. │ ├─▸ ✓ LINES THROUGH THE TARGET ... FLORIDA and KENTUCKY, in nearly identical words: │ a diagonal, horizontal or vertical line intersecting two points on the target, │ without crossing into another target. Two states, one drafting ancestor. │ ├─▸ ✗ THE MARK THAT ENTERS TWO TARGETS │ FLORIDA ...... ✗ "when a mark enters more than one vote target, it is an │ overvote and it cannot be determined whether the voter has │ made a definite choice" │ ✱ THE ONE RULE ON THIS MAP THAT CONVERTS A GENEROUS STANDARD INTO A STRICT ONE. │ A long check mark or a sweeping circle — exactly the marks Part C counts — is │ an Overvote if it strays a millimetre. The more expressive the permitted │ mark, the larger the geometric target for failing this test. │ └─▸ THE CROSSED-OUT OVAL WITH A CORRECTION ELSEWHERE — four rules, four results CALIFORNIA ... ✓ "correction tape, strikeover, white-out or generic written note of instruction" is honoured where another choice in the same contest is marked; "a mark crossed out by the voter" is not valid and signals a declined option MINNESOTA .... ✓ where two candidates are marked and one mark is partially erased, "a vote shall be counted for the remaining marked candidate" [§ 204C.22 subd. 11] FLORIDA ...... ✗ a strikethrough ALONE is not intent: "a voter's failure to positively indicate voter intent through some type of mark is not a clear indication that the voter has made a definite choice" MICHIGAN ..... ⚠ corrections that cause a false tabulator reading are not valid votes and the ballot must be DUPLICATED — the only rule here whose remedy is a new piece of paper rather than a reading ✱ CALIFORNIA AND MINNESOTA READ THE SUBTRACTION AS PART OF THE EXPRESSION; FLORIDA READS ONLY ADDITIONS. A voter who fills one oval, crosses it out, and fills another has cast a vote in California and Minnesota. In Florida the crossed-out oval may still be "more than half" filled and therefore a valid vote under Part B, which with the second oval makes an overvote — the strict and the generous rules interacting to void a contest the voter plainly meant to decide. │ ■ PART D — THE WRITE-IN, WHERE THE RULES ARE AT THEIR MOST GENEROUS │ ├─▸ NAME ON THE LINE, TARGET UNMARKED │ WASHINGTON ..... ✓ "if a name is written on a write-in line, it shall be counted │ as a valid write-in vote REGARDLESS of whether the │ corresponding target area is marked" │ NORTH CAROLINA . ✓ write-ins without a filled oval count IN A HAND COUNT if │ intent is determinable [Numbered Memo 2019-07] │ ✱ NORTH CAROLINA'S RULE IS CONDITIONED ON THE COUNTING METHOD, │ WHICH IS THE PART-A PROBLEM STATED OUTRIGHT BY A STATE: the │ same ballot is a vote or not a vote depending on whether a │ machine or a person read it. │ ├─▸ A PRINTED CANDIDATE'S NAME WRITTEN INTO THE WRITE-IN LINE │ WASHINGTON ..... ✓ "shall not be tallied as an overvote and shall be counted as │ a valid vote for the printed candidate" │ NORTH CAROLINA . ✓ duplicate votes for the same candidate count once │ ├─▸ MISSPELLINGS AND PARTIAL NAMES │ FLORIDA ........ ✓ "even if a voter abbreviates, misspells, uses only the first │ or last name, or varies the form of the name" │ WASHINGTON ..... ✓ "no attempt to vote for a candidate shall be rejected due to │ the misspelling of a candidate's name, unless it is │ impossible to clearly determine the voter's intent" │ TEXAS .......... ✓ "if the voter misspells the write-in candidate's name but the │ judge can determine the intent, the vote is counted" │ [Tex. Elec. Code § 65.007 and SOS Election Advisory 2014-19] │ └─▸ ✱ THE WRITE-IN RULES ARE THE MOST PERMISSIVE PROVISIONS IN THIS WHOLE AREA OF LAW, AND THEY GOVERN THE SMALLEST NUMBER OF BALLOTS. The provisions governing the largest number of ballots — the partial fill, the faint mark, the stray dot — are the ones with no numbers in them. The legal effort has gone where the votes are not. │ ■ PART E — WHERE THE RULE LIVES, WHICH IS THE COLUMN NOBODY PUBLISHES │ ├─▸ ◉ STATUTE — passed by a legislature, changeable only by one │ MINNESOTA ...... Minn. Stat. § 204C.22, thirteen subdivisions, the most detailed │ statutory treatment located: intent "ascertained only from the │ face of the ballot" (subd. 2) · uniform non-standard marks │ count (subd. 10) · partial erasure (subd. 11) · "slightly │ soiled or defaced" no bar (subd. 12) · an IDENTIFYING mark │ voids the ENTIRE ballot (subd. 13) │ TEXAS .......... Tex. Elec. Code § 65.007 — failure to mark "in strict conformity │ with the voting instructions does not void the ballot"; │ overvote exceptions at § 65.007(c)–(d); an individual mark │ overrides a straight-party mark │ NORTH CAROLINA . N.C.G.S. § 163-182.1(a)–(b) — "no official ballot shall be │ rejected because of technical errors in marking it, unless it │ is impossible to clearly determine the voter's choice" │ ├─▸ ◉ ADMINISTRATIVE RULE — adopted by an agency or board under rulemaking, revisable │ without a legislature │ GEORGIA ........ Ga. Comp. R. & Regs. r. 183-1-15-.02 [State Election Board] │ FLORIDA ........ r. 1S-2.027 / form DS-DE 420 [Department of State] │ CALIFORNIA ..... 2 CCR §§ 20280.1–20284 [Secretary of State] │ NEW YORK ....... 9 NYCRR 6210.13 [State Board of Elections] │ WASHINGTON ..... WAC 434-261-086 [Secretary of State] ⚑ see below │ KENTUCKY ....... 31 KAR 6:030 [State Board of Elections] │ ├─▸ ◉ DIRECTIVE, GUIDANCE OR MANUAL — not rulemaking at all │ MICHIGAN ....... Bureau of Elections instruction, "Determining the Validity of │ Ballot Markings" — a PDF on the department's website, citing │ MCL 168.799a(3) and 168.803(2) for authority │ NORTH CAROLINA . Numbered Memo 2019-07, which supplies the operative sub-rules │ the statute above does not │ TEXAS .......... SOS Election Advisory 2014-19, same relationship to § 65.007 │ PENNSYLVANIA ... "Standards for What Constitutes a Vote," adopted 1 July 2003 by │ the Voting Standards Development Board constituted under Act │ 2002-150 § 204, approved by the Secretary of the Commonwealth │ and filed 1 August 2003, published in the Pennsylvania │ Bulletin [33 Pa.B., Doc. No. 03-1538] │ ✱ A ONE-TIME BOARD, CONVENED TO DISCHARGE § 21081(a)(6), WHOSE │ PRODUCT IS A NOTICE IN A BULLETIN FROM 2003. Pennsylvania's │ standard for optical scan is "blackening the oval or filling │ in the blank space in an arrow or line," and the board │ recorded that standards may vary BETWEEN categories of system │ while remaining uniform WITHIN each — the Part A clause, read │ correctly, twenty-three years ago, in a county-administered │ state. Mail voting arrived in 2019 and this map does not │ establish what, if anything, replaced the 2003 text for it. │ [unconfirmed — see Note 11] │ ├─▸ ◉ NOTHING ... LOUISIANA, the only state with neither statute nor rule † NCSL │ ✱ AND THE ABSENCE IS EXPLICABLE RATHER THAN A GAP: Louisiana ran the November │ 2026 election on machines described in its own 2026 legislative record as │ thirty-five years old and lacking a paper trail. A state whose equipment │ produces no voter-marked paper has nothing to interpret, and § 21081(a)(6) │ asks for a standard "for each category of voting system used in the State" — │ of which it has one, and that one cannot produce an ambiguous mark. │ ⚑ THE EXEMPTION EXPIRES. Vendor certification reopened in June 2026, selection │ was targeted for the end of 2026, and deployment begins in some parishes in │ 2027 over a two-to-three-year transition, with auditable paper the one fixed │ requirement. Louisiana will need this rule before it needs anything else the │ new system brings, and it has no draft of one on this map. │ └─▸ ⚑ THE INSTRUMENT TIER IS WHY A STANDARD CAN MOVE IN AN ELECTION YEAR — AND ONE DID. Washington filed WSR 26-12-029 on 27 May 2026 amending WAC 434-261-086, the statewide standard on what is a vote, expressly for § 21081(a)(6) compliance: "races and issues" becomes "offices and measures," "can" becomes "may," "easily be discerned" becomes "CLEARLY BE DETERMINED," the write-in and overvote exceptions are clarified, and a reference to "the manual" is replaced by "this rule." Effective date: 1 JANUARY 2027. ✱ SO THE 3 NOVEMBER 2026 ELECTION IN WASHINGTON RUNS ON THE 2018 TEXT [WSR 18-10-003, eff. 20 May 2018], AND THE CLARIFIED STANDARD ARRIVES TWO MONTHS AFTER THE ELECTION IT CLARIFIES. The substantive edit is the evidentiary one — "easily discerned" to "clearly determined" is a different question put to a canvassing board — and any 2026 Washington recount or contest is argued under the old words while the state's own considered view of the right words is on the books and not yet in force. │ ■ PART F — WHAT NO MARK STANDARD ON THIS MAP REACHES │ ├─ THE REFERRAL DECISION, WHICH IS THE WHOLE BALLGAME. Outside Georgia, no standard │ here states the pixel-density value at which a tabulator treats a target as │ marked. The NIST study of marginal marks reports those values are proprietary, │ that scanners "count the number of dark pixels in a voting target," that "no two │ sensors are identical and the behavior can further be affected by environmental │ conditions," and that marginal marks "are neither clearly countable as votes or │ as non-votes by optical mark scanners." Its five marginal categories — check │ marks, crosses, partially filled, lightly filled, overfilled — are exactly the │ categories Part C legislates for the human and nobody legislates for the machine. │ ├─ THE BALLOT-MARKING DEVICE, BY ITS OWN NATURE. A device-printed ballot cannot be │ ambiguously marked, so every rule above is inert as to it, and the questions that │ replace them are different in kind: whether the tabulator reads the printed names │ or the barcode, and whether the voter checked the printout. North Carolina's memo │ answers the first — "the printed names must always be used in counting the votes, │ rather than coordinates or barcodes" — because that is what the voter verified. │ See Ballot Marking Device and Hand-Marked Paper Ballot. │ ├─ UNIFORMITY ACROSS STATES, WHICH NOTHING REQUIRES AND Bush v. Gore DID NOT │ REACH. The holding was that a recount run under a bare intent standard with no │ sub-rules offends equal protection WITHIN a state. Part C is that problem one │ level up and outside its reach: a faint dot in an oval is a vote in Washington and │ not a vote in New York, and no federal instrument has anything to say about it. │ ├─ ⊘ FEDERAL REVIEW OF ADEQUACY. Nobody grades these standards. The EAC certifies │ equipment; it does not collect, publish or approve the fifty definitions, and the │ § 21111 civil action is the only lever. A state satisfies (a)(6) by having │ adopted something. │ ├─ THE ACCEPTANCE DECISION, AGAIN. Every rule here governs a ballot already in the │ count. Whether the envelope was opened at all — signature, deadline, cure — is │ upstream and untouched, exactly as Recount Trigger Crosswalk found for the │ recount. A mark standard cannot reach a ballot nobody read. │ └─ THE ONE PLACE THE HUMAN STANDARD GOVERNS EVERYTHING: THE FULL HAND COUNT. In a hand recount or a hand-count audit there is no scanner and no referral, so Part C applies to every ballot rather than to the rejected pile — which is why Georgia's SB 3EX full statewide hand recount for eight offices at 0.5% is the one 2026 procedure in which a state's mark rules decide a whole election rather than a remainder. Georgia's hand-count teams apply r. 183-1-15-.02's "clearly and without question" standard, and its 20% machine threshold becomes irrelevant at the moment it matters most. ``` ## Notes 1. **"Forty-eight states have voter intent laws" is a definitional artifact, and the two trackers that say it disagree about who the other two are.** [[National Conference of State Legislatures]], updated **12 November 2024**, finds roughly 48 states with voter-intent language in statute or administrative rule and identifies **Louisiana** as having neither statute nor regulation, with **Rhode Island** lacking statutory guidance but having administrative guidance. The Movement Advancement Project's democracy map, last modified **13 July 2026**, also says 48 — but counts "2 states + D.C." as lacking, putting about 3% of voting-eligible Americans outside such a rule, and does not name the two in the extract available. The counts agree and the membership does not, because one tracker is asking whether a **statute** exists and the other whether a **rule of any kind** does — the Part E problem appearing inside the measurement of itself. A reader who wants to know whether their own state has a standard cannot get the answer from the count. 2. **Georgia is the only state located here that regulates the scanner, and the numbers deserve to be stated precisely because they are unusual.** Ga. Comp. R. & Regs. r. 183-1-15-.02 directs that scanners be configured so that detection of 20% or more fill of the target area is a vote, less than 10% is not, and at least 10% but less than 20% flags the ballot for adjudication, where it counts if the vote review panel finds the voter "clearly and without question indicated the candidate." The rule took effect **13 November 2003** — within a year of HAVA — and was last amended **14 October 2020**. It is a rule of the [[Georgia State Election Board]] rather than a statute, which means Georgia's definition of a vote, scanner threshold included, is revisable by a five-member board between elections. That is the same body whose 2024 rule package drew national attention and litigation. 3. **The three-way split in Part C is the finding, and it is not a technicality.** Washington's WAC 434-261-086 makes a mark in the target a valid vote subject to stray-mark exceptions; New York's 9 NYCRR 6210.13 makes a hesitation dot in the target invalid "unless it is demonstrated that the voter consistently marked" that way; Michigan's bureau instruction makes a stray mark within the target invalid and requires comparison against the rest of the ballot. All three resolve the hard case by looking at the rest of the ballot, and the hard case is defined by there being nothing else to look at: a single-contest ballot, a voter who voted one race and skipped the others, a recount of one contest. Washington's default is to count and New York's and Michigan's is not. Michigan's internal structure is the sharpest thing in this note — a check mark in the oval is valid **without** consistency, a faint dot in the same oval needs the whole ballot — because it sorts marks by form while the machine in front of it sorts them by darkness. 4. **Kentucky's and Florida's "majority of the oval" is the same drafting, and so are their line rules.** Kentucky's 31 KAR 6:030 and Florida's DS-DE 420 both count a majority-filled target, both count a circled or underlined target or name, both count X marks, check marks, plus signs, asterisks and stars, and both count a diagonal, horizontal or vertical line intersecting two points on the target without entering another. Two states separated by a thousand miles reciting the same list in nearly the same order is evidence of a common post-HAVA model, and tracing that model — whether an EAC document, an NCSL draft, or one state copying another — has not been accomplished here and would explain a good deal of what looks like independent agreement in Part C. Kentucky's rule cites **52 U.S.C. § 21081(a)(6) itself as co-authority** alongside KRS 117.015(1)(a), which is the clearest available evidence that these rules exist because the federal command told them to. 5. **Florida's strict rules and generous rules interact badly, and the interaction is worth carrying into November.** Florida counts a target filled more than half **notwithstanding** stray marks elsewhere; it counts circles, X marks and lines; and it voids a contest where "a mark enters more than one vote target." It also holds that a strikethrough alone is not a positive indication of intent. Put together: a voter who more-than-half fills one oval, strikes it out, and fills another has, on these rules, two valid marks and therefore an overvote, because the strikethrough subtracts nothing. California (2 CCR §§ 20280.1–20284, honouring correction tape, strikeover, white-out or a written note, and treating a crossed-out mark as a declined option) and Minnesota (§ 204C.22 subd. 11, counting the remaining marked candidate where one of two marks is partially erased) reach the opposite result on the same paper. This is not a marginal-mark problem; it is a corrections problem, and it is the second-most-common thing voters actually do wrong. 6. **The write-in rules are the most permissive provisions in the field and govern the fewest ballots.** Washington counts a name on the write-in line regardless of whether the target is marked, counts a printed candidate's name written in as a vote for that candidate rather than an overvote, and forbids rejection for misspelling; Florida counts abbreviations, misspellings, first-or-last-name-only and varied forms; Texas counts a misspelled write-in where the judge can determine intent. North Carolina counts an unmarked-target write-in **in a hand count** — a state rule that openly conditions validity on who or what did the reading, which is the Part A problem admitted in a state's own guidance. 7. **Minnesota § 204C.22 subd. 13 is the one provision that runs the other way, and it has no analogue elsewhere on this map.** An identifying mark — anything by which the voter could be identified — makes the **entire ballot** defective, not merely the contest. Every other rule here is a rule for salvaging a ballot; this is the only one that destroys a ballot that is otherwise perfectly readable, and it exists to protect the secrecy of the ballot rather than its accuracy. A voter who signs their ballot has cast nothing in Minnesota. How many other states have such a provision, and whether any have repealed one, was not determined here. 8. **The error-rate asymmetry in Part A is the structural joke and it should be stated plainly.** 52 U.S.C. § 21081(a)(5) fixes the permissible error rate of a voting system by cross-reference to FEC standards "in effect on October 29, 2002" — a hard number, frozen, now twenty-four years old. § 21081(a)(6) requires a definition of a vote and fixes nothing. Congress was willing to quantify how accurately a machine must count and unwilling to say what it is counting. The frozen standard is tracked on [[How a Ballot Is Counted]]; the unquantified one is this map. 9. **What a circled name reveals about the whole system.** In Florida, Kentucky and New York, circling a candidate's name is expressly a valid vote. It also deposits zero dark pixels in the target, so no tabulator in the country can see it. The ballot is therefore read by the machine as an **undervote** — not as an error, not as a marginal mark, not as anything requiring review — and in a jurisdiction that does not out-stack and inspect undervotes, a vote the state's own rule calls valid is never counted and nothing in the process registers that anything happened. This is the cleanest single illustration of Part A: the legal standard and the operative standard are not the same standard, and the gap between them is silent. 10. **Enforcement is recorded as unresolved rather than as absent.** 52 U.S.C. § 21111 gives the Attorney General a civil action for declaratory or injunctive relief to enforce the Title III requirements, and Title III contains no express private right of action. No reported enforcement action directed at a state's (a)(6) standard has been located, but it has not been established that none exists — the search was not exhaustive and the question is worth a dedicated look, because the answer determines whether (a)(6) is a legal duty or a drafting convention. Marked **[unconfirmed]**. 11. **Pennsylvania is the largest open question on this map.** Its standard is a 2003 notice in the Pennsylvania Bulletin, adopted by a one-time Voting Standards Development Board constituted under Act 2002-150 § 204 and approved by the Secretary of the Commonwealth, specifying for optical scan "blackening the oval or filling in the blank space in an arrow or line." That board correctly read the "each category of voting system" clause and said so. But Pennsylvania adopted no-excuse mail voting in 2019, replaced essentially all of its equipment after 2018, and administers elections county by county — and it has not been established here what currently governs mark validity there, whether the 2003 standards were ever amended, or what the county boards do in practice. The primary source could not be reached directly, and the account above comes from a mirrored copy; the finding is marked **[unconfirmed]** on that basis as well. For a state with 17 electoral votes and a long history of recount litigation, "the standard is a twenty-three-year-old bulletin notice" is either the answer or the beginning of a much better question. 12. **Louisiana's absence is a finding about equipment, not about diligence, and the finding has an expiry date.** Louisiana is the one state NCSL places outside any voter-intent rule, and its 2026 legislative record describes machines thirty-five years old with a paper-trail gap and a roughly $100 million phased replacement: vendor certification reopened in June 2026, six vendors previously certified, selection targeted for the end of 2026, first parish deployments in 2027, two to three years to transition, auditable paper the one fixed requirement. A state with no voter-marked paper has no ambiguous marks and needs no rule for reading them. From 2027 it will, and nothing located here suggests a draft exists. The characterization of the current equipment as producing no voter-verified paper rests on reporting of the paper-trail gap rather than on an equipment inventory read directly, and is flagged accordingly. 13. **Questions left open.** The **populations** of Part B are not asserted: how many of the fifty states state an express fill threshold for the human, and how many for the machine, is not published anywhere located here and would require reading fifty instruments rather than ten — that is the single highest-value piece of work this map identifies and does not do, and it is the same shape as the tier-2 census the recount map left open. Where the Kentucky–Florida model text came from. How many states follow Washington rather than New York and Michigan on the single-mark case, which is the question with the most ballots behind it. Whether any state has ever amended its (a)(6) standard between the primary and the general. Whether any scanner vendor publishes its threshold, or any state has obtained it by contract. Whether Michigan's duplication remedy for corrected ballots is unique. How many states have Minnesota's identifying-mark provision. What governs Pennsylvania now. Whether any (a)(6) enforcement action exists. And whether the Washington amendment's 1 January 2027 effective date was deliberate — a decision not to change the rules inside an election year — or simply the ordinary rulemaking calendar, which is the difference between a norm worth naming and a coincidence. ## See also - [[How a Ballot Is Counted]] — the tabulation map this one opens up; its adjudication board is where Part C is exercised, and its frozen § 21081(a)(5) error rate is the asymmetry in Note 8 - [[Voter Intent]] — the standard every instrument on this map recites, and the reason reciting it settles nothing - [[Hand-Marked Paper Ballot]] · [[Ballot Marking Device]] — the two categories of ballot § 21081(a)(6) requires separate standards for, only one of which can be ambiguous - [[Post-Election Audit Crosswalk]] — the audit whose accuracy is bounded above by the standard on this map - [[Recount Trigger Crosswalk]] — the recount that applies this standard to every ballot rather than to the rejected pile - [[How a Tie Vote Is Broken]] — the best-documented demonstration of what this map's standards can do: Virginia House District 94 was not tied until a recount court read one slashed-through mark as a vote the other way, and the resulting 11,607–11,607 tie was resolved by drawing a film canister from a bowl, with control of the House of Delegates on it - [[Ballot Adjudication]] — the human review the machine's threshold decides the membership of - [[Overvote]] · [[Undervote]] — the two dispositions Part C and Note 9 turn on - [[Bush v. Gore]] — the uniform-standard holding, and the ceiling Part F says it does not reach across state lines - [[Help America Vote Act]] — Title III, § 21081(a)(6), and the enforcement gap in Note 10 - [[Election Assistance Commission]] — the federal body that certifies the equipment and does not grade the standards - [[National Institute of Standards and Technology]] — the marginal-mark research in Part F, and the only quantitative treatment of the referral decision located anywhere - [[Georgia State Election Board]] — the five-member board that wrote the only scanner threshold in American law - [[How a Voting System Is Certified and Decertified]] — the certification that tests the machine against a standard that says nothing about this - [[Cast Vote Record]] · [[Ballot Reconciliation]] — the artifacts a disputed mark becomes after it is resolved - [[Provisional Ballot]] — the acceptance decision Part F says no mark standard reaches - [[Election Ballot Chain of Custody Flow]] — the custody of the paper Part F's hand count depends on - [[How Election Results Are Transmitted and Reported]] · [[Election Canvass]] · [[Election Certification]] · [[How a Midterm Election Is Certified]] — the downstream layers that inherit whatever Part C decided - [[Risk-Limiting Audit]] — the audit design that escalates to a full hand count, where Part C governs every ballot - [[Federal Contested Elections Act]] — the federal House contest, where a chamber rather than a court applies a mark standard - [[National Conference of State Legislatures]] · [[Ballotpedia]] · [[Verified Voting]] · [[Brennan Center for Justice]] — the trackers behind Note 1 - [[Election Denialism]] — the politics that treats the silence in Note 9 as evidence of design - [[State Election Administration Tree]] — the offices that write and apply every rule above - [[Elections Clause]] — why there are fifty answers and no federal one - [[Brad Raffensperger]] — the current Georgia office under whose department the only machine threshold in the country sits - [[2026 Midterms Hub]] — the cycle this map is built for - [[Foundations Hub]] — parent hub for the map series