Door to Door Voting

Started by JohnM49 • 4 replies • 1467 views

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JohnM49 (Michigan)
Posts: 6

Posted:

I am the President/CEO of our Condo Association. Site Condos located in Michigan. One of my residents just told me this yesterday. One of our board members was up for reelection. We did not have a quorum at our annual meetings, so ballots were mailed out. This gentleman went door to door with blank ballots having the homeowner fill them out in his presence and signed. I need to find out from the homeowner if he collected them and mailed them in or had the resident mail them, but provided the the stamp etc....

Is this allowed in Michigan? I see statues in California where this is not.

TimB4 (Tennessee)
Posts: 21,059

Posted:

Hi John,

What do your governing documents say about voting by mail?

Were they ballots or directed proxies?

Many people confuse directed proxies (where they specify how someone should vote for them) with actual ballots. My Association uses directed proxies but the actual ballot is filled out at the meeting when the election takes place.

In addition to your governing documents, the following would typically apply:

Here is a link to the Michigan condominium act

If your Association is incorporated as a Non Profit Corporation in Michigan then this link to
the Michigan NonProfit Corporation Act would also apply

Hope this helps,

Tim

SusanW1 (Michigan)
Posts: 5,202

Posted:

Most likely it was proxy forms since ballots would have required an individual identified envelope to enclose the secret ballot. That way the secretary could have verified the voter.

Instead, the guy could have collected proxies.

But . . . What exactly was sent out with the Notice of the Meeting? ballots AND proxy form?

JohnM49 (Michigan)
Posts: 6

Posted:

Here is the scoop. We had our Annual Meeting. You can take proxies to annual meetings. We had no quorum. So ballots (only ballots) were mailed to each homeowner included a self addressed stamp envelope to send back to our property manangement company.

One board member thought he was going to lose, so he went around the neighborhood collecting votes on extra ballots he made copies of. He asked the homeowner to check his name off and sign the ballot in front of him. again no proxy. After the ballot was signed he took these ballots and mailed them in himself. I am well know around the neighborhood and residents yesterday just came up to me and told me this. So the resident was signing under "duress" with him in front of them.

As President I say all these votes are invalid and a revote need to be done by sending out new ballots. With a letter stating why the revote.

TimB4 (Tennessee)
Posts: 21,059

Posted:

John,

I would concur that the copies of any official ballot forms would be invalid.

I'm also concerned that there was a place for signatures on the ballots as it's typical that elections for Directors are to be done by secret ballot. You should check your corporate law, and condo act. If your Association is required to have secret ballots, then any ballot signed could also be considered invalid.

I noticed my link wasn't working in the earlier post (due to a typo). Here is the proper link to the condo law (the link to the corporate law worked properly):

http://www.legislature.mi.gov/documents/mcl/pdf/mcl-act-59-of-1978.pdf

Tim

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