Proxy Fraud

Hope you all don't mind me posting a question here I have about an election we have on our community (after being moved three times) coming up this August here in North Florida.

Long story short we have a group of home owners that want to remove the current board members and have submitted fraudulent proxies on behalf of other members of the community that are not full time residents. I imagine someone has gone through the local property records list and have copied and forged signature's and submitted them hoping they would be missed.

So my question is what can be done? If you have spotted several of these frauds and have verified them with the people in question to be frauds what would you as a board member at a election do? What if there are more votes that have been missed that are fraudulent? Can the election still go ahead, it just seems a big farce. What about people that walk in with proxys on the night? We have a lot of snowbirds who come down to N Florida in the winter and are not easily contacted so the vote can't be verified..or at least not yet.

Sure this must have happened else where in the country? Look forward to hearing your thoughts

John

That's a pretty sophisticated forgery process you describe.

What's at stake to warrant such an elaborate scheme?

That's a pretty big charge to accuse people of.
What proof do you have that the signatures are fake?

If you receive two proxies from the same owner (it happens), you go with the one that has the latest date on it.

Tim

Typically, Associations are registered as corporations. As a corporation, they must comply with the corporate laws of the State they are registered in. With the expectation that your Association is registered in the State of Florida, the following would apply:

Title 36, 617.0721 Voting by members.

This statute says:

"A corporation may reject a vote, consent, waiver, or proxy appointment if the secretary or other officer or agent authorized to tabulate votes, acting in good faith, has a reasonable basis for doubting the validity of the signature on it or the signatory’s authority to sign for the member."


The Board, or election committee, must determine if the proxy will be or will not be accepted prior to issuing of a ballot. If you know that their is the possibility of fraud, the Board can take extra steps by contacting members to verify if they did give a proxy.

If, after the fact, a proxy was indeed determined to be fraudulent, the member identifying the fraud can request that the board holds a new election or bring legal action to determine the validity of the election.


Basically, yes. However, the Board must base their discretion on, Per the FL statutes: "a reasonable basis for doubting the validity of the signature on it or the signatory’s authority to sign for the member."

Note that the term "reasonable basis" is a subjective term. Therefore, the individual/s making the determination should be able to defend the decision if challenged in a court of law.

Tim

John,

Like Susan says, you haad better have absolute proof that any of the proxies are fraudulent.

You asked "What if the board suspect that some are fraudulent but are not able to contact those home owners to confirm? Also what about those who bring them on the night of the election, have any boards ever had a normal meeting and then looked over the votes at a later date to confirm or deny new board members and to check each and every vote? Is is down to the discretion of the board?"

Suspect is not good enough. You need proof. You cannot contact some of the absentee owners. DO NOT use those proxies without contacting the name on the proxy.

You may not look over the votes at a later date. Votes are counted at the meeting. You MUST have a couple or more of vote watchers or counters.
This not a Board discretion matter. You may want to check State Statutes 617 under election of officers.

What needs to happen is that the Proxy ballot, if you continue with them, which I would not, needs to have a statement on it saying that.

'ALL PROXY BALLOTS MUST BE RETURNED TO (Property Manager or Sec of the Association) 24 or 48 hours prior to the 7 pm start of the meeting to elect officer and Board members." Call it annual meeting or whatever it is.(Whatever you like)

This needs to be handled according to State Statutes and you certainly are on a slippery slope right now.

require all (authorizing) proxy signatures to be NOTARIZED

? what problem ?

Notary? Naw.... too much money and trouble. Dont even mention the fasle proxy votes. Just hold another vote. If anyone asks just tell them after doing a random verification of votes, many people said that vote was not theirs.

- Write a letter to each homeowner "due to inconsistencies there will be a revote. All votes must use this official ballot and be mailed in by xx/xx/xx. If you signed a proxy agreement designating a person to vote for you, you must mail them this ballot, no other ballots will be accepted. This election is by mail only, there will be no voting in person the day of the election"
- Hold the election by mail only (this will give you time to check the codes) No voting at the meeting.
- Each ballot will have the homeowner's name and random code (this can be done in Microsoft Word with mail merge, or manually
- Mail out the ballots (allow a month to reach the person with mail forwarding, etc)
- Collect the returned ballots in the mail by xxxx date.
- Next hold a meeting announcing the vote results.

Its easy to see how someone could just photocopy a proxy vote and write in anyone to make an election go their way. If this is what happened, what I mentioned above will fix that. Each homeowner is printed on the ballot and there is no way the bad guys will know the random code, thus making it impossible to forge.

Steve,

That's a good option providing that the bylaws allow voting by mail. Otherwise, they the vote must be done at a meeting.

Per Florida Corporate Code:

"(2) A member who is entitled to vote may vote in person or, unless the articles of incorporation or the bylaws otherwise provide, may vote by proxy executed in writing by the member or by his or her duly authorized attorney in fact."

" If directors or officers are to be elected by members, the bylaws may provide that such elections may be conducted by mail."

DOH