[Siri]

They do something similar for FLL qualifiers already. I don't know how FIRST runs the "draft" (FLL teams only get 1 official event), but each team picks their 1st-3rd venue choices. This could be automated similarly to the proposed FIRST Choice draft, while still retaining the override procedures that FRC uses now in terms of late-registering rookies, teams having to attend a specific event for travel reasons, sponsorship, etc.

These two ideas (FIRST Choice and event selection) may actually decrease the workload for FIRST HQ after the capital investment in design--which doesn't have to be done <1mo before kickoff. It would certainly mean less "clean up" than issues like this cause. Even if the system does break, it wouldn't be such a time crunch.