(1) If a ballot is damaged, unreadable, uncountable, or unable to be resolved by the tabulation system, a team of two or more people working together must duplicate ballots to reflect the voter's intent according to WAC 434-261-086. A different team of two or more people working together must audit every duplicated ballot to verify the ballots were duplicated correctly. The voter's original ballot may not be altered. The county auditor shall tabulate the duplicate ballot.

If voter intent is not clear, the ballot must be referred to the canvassing board. When duplicating ballots, the county auditor shall take the following steps to create and maintain an audit trail of the action taken:

(a) Each original ballot and duplicate ballot must be assigned the same unique control number, with the number being marked upon the face of each ballot, to ensure that each duplicate ballot may be tied back to the original ballot;

(b) A log must be kept of the ballots duplicated, which must at least include:

(i) The control number of each original ballot and the corresponding duplicate ballot;

(ii) The initials of at least two people who participated in the duplication of each ballot; and

(iii) The total number of ballots duplicated.

Original and duplicate ballots must be kept in secure storage at all times, except during duplication, inspection by the canvassing board, or tabulation.

(2) Written procedures shall be established detailing the situations in which ballots may be duplicated. These procedures shall be included as a part of the county canvassing board manual.

(3) If a county uses an automated duplication program, only votes appearing in a human-readable form on the original ballot may be duplicated onto a machine-readable ballot. The human-readable votes on the original ballot must be compared to the votes printed on the duplicated ballot to ensure that the votes are duplicated accurately. If a human-readable version of any races or ballot pages of the original ballot are not returned or available, votes in those races may not be duplicated or counted.