Research Dominion OutstackConditionIds

[yezr]

To match Dominion round by round results, we filter out ballots based on the OutstackConditionId property in the Dominion CVR .json. See #909 for a bunch of background on a specific OutstackConditionId of 7 for InactiveContest.

Further research shows that there is a OutstackConditionManifest.json that enumerates more than just 7 for InactiveContest. We need to research these to see if any other filtering needs to be done.

OutstackConditionManifest.json from 2022 AK General Election

Open Questions

• Are these universal to all Dominion contests? Or can they be configured? E.g. can OutstackConditionId=7 be different in two different contests? Why else would a OutstackConditionManifest.json be needed?

[yezr]

FWIW When initially researching OutstackConditionId=7 in #909 I remember seeing that @thecinyc uses OutstackConditionId to filter overvotes. I do remember running some of the AK results through and confirmed that the ballots we marked as Overvotes (by manually inspecting the rankings) exactly matched those marked as overvotes by Dominion (with OutstackConditionId=9).

[yezr]

Here is the OutstackConditionManifest.json from the 2024 AK US Congressional Race with the CVR released on 11/30/24. Notice the addition of Id=7 InvalidContest vs. the previous 2022 CVR. The version number is maybe the version of Dominion?

[yezr]

@nurse-the-code brings up a potential intermediate fix until we can confirm the reliability of OutstackConditionIds: make it configurable in RCTab (by UI or even just config.json) what OutstackConditionIds we will filter out. Then the user can manually inspect the OutstackConditionManifest.json.

[thecinyc]

Allowing the user to configure - perhaps with Outstack Conditions 7 and 9 checked as default for Dominion/Alaska - makes the most sense.

As you noted, 7 was added this year. You never know when/if Dominion will add another one. 7 came as a surprise that I only figured out after the offiicial RCV calcs were run.