But that's the problem. There is no viable mechanism for doing this. Even if you somehow actually succeeded in convincing them to change the checklist, it would be next year's checklist, or the one ten years from now, not the one you have to establish "compliance" with right now in order to get the bureaucratic sign off, and thereby implement the spurious requirement.
Two things that I am aware of:
(a) All standards provide a "comment period". Along with contact details for those standard bodies, there is a viable mechanism to some extent.
(b) Standards are broad, which makes the language a bit abstract, and this can be a problem. However, they also include "compensating controls", which are typically used as a wedge to avoid a compliance failure.
I have had great success with several auditors with a polite conversation trying to help them map their goals to our controls. Yes, you will always meet an auditor or two who won't accept anything but the written word of the standard. Like any other industry, there are smart and dumb auditors. :-)
But that's the problem. There is no viable mechanism for doing this. Even if you somehow actually succeeded in convincing them to change the checklist, it would be next year's checklist, or the one ten years from now, not the one you have to establish "compliance" with right now in order to get the bureaucratic sign off, and thereby implement the spurious requirement.