This exact issue is giving me fits! It is now the lone error I am getting on my site using multiple accessibility tools. My school is facing a lawsuit over ADA compliance and we have fixed everything but this one empty href error showing up in Google Accessibility Audit, WAVE, SortSite and AChecker. Some of the scan tools also don’t like the tag <i></i> (https://support.siteimprove.com/hc/en-gb/articles/115002726312-Accessibility-Bold-vs-Strong-and-Italic-vs-Emphasis), either. I can’t get a clean scan anywhere to send my lawyer. This is a good theme, please make it come into the modern day.