Weighted Lotteries
- Households receive additional entries based on preference criteria (e.g., local residency, program tenure, household size).
- Each entry is assigned a separate random rank.
- The household’s best-ranked entry determines their lottery position.
- If a preference is later found invalid during application review, the corresponding entry is removed and the next-best entry is used—a soft no approach that avoids disqualification.
🧷 How Verification Affects Ranking
During application review, staff will verify whether the household actually qualifies for each claimed preference:
- If the household does not meet a weighted criterion, the entries linked to that response are removed.
- The participant keeps the next-best valid rank based on verified criteria.
- This avoids disqualification and supports a soft-no model.