Okay I zeroed out a donation to make std ded the best option and then in the CARES section I deleted the preloaded entry (which was the correct amount for the now reduced donations) and left that field blank. Then, during the federal review, I was taken to a worksheet for 1040/1040SR and I had to enter something in the 10b field (blank was not acceptable in the worksheet), so I entered $300.00 for that Cares donation deduction. Then I passed the federal review! I went through state again and then passed the final federal and state review.
Next, I went back to federal deductions and corrected the "test $1.00 entry". So, that put me back into itemized ded > standard ded. So I selected itemized but the program still used standard deduction...
