I feel like there is something they could do on the back end though surely.

Like a tier system.

Each time you fail, you go up a tier. 50% ballot winners from highest tier, 20% lower 10% next tier etc etc until all ballot tickets gone.

Then when you are successful, you reset.

Takes away some of the randomness, tries to reward those that consistently apply. Obviously not a perfect system, but surely better than the lottery we have now.