Non-Participating HOA Owners. Changing their votes to non-votes

I'm a resident in an HOA community in Western Washington.

For the past twenty years the HOA board has struggled to pass community amendments due to a lack of participation on the part of home owners. Homeowners who do not vote, have a vote that counts as 'no' in all elections / amendments / new bylaws. Typically participation is only about 30% of the community, unless a major issue occurs, in which case 50% has been reached.

I'm on a committee to try and formulate some new rounds of changes to RCRs and Amendments and I see this as an insurmountable obstacle for our success.

Is it possible to get the status of a non-voting HOA member / property owner to count as a non-vote, rather then as a 'no' vote? Is there a legal obstacle to doing so?

We're planning to maintain proper notification requirements in the community, so they'd receive some form of recognized, traceable legal communication about upcoming votes (probably more then once).

Can anyone offer insight? Can this be done? Have you done it? If so, what were outcomes, objections, ways of overcoming them?

The HOA was originally a group of about 30 home owners, each with individual lots, and one man who owned all of the initial lots, as well as around 120 others that were unoccupied. Essentially the covenants were set up so that he could make decisions as long as he wanted too without much input from others. So yes, they were poorly set up.

Do you have experience or have you seen anything like this? Is there a good set of standards or practices we can follow? Any input from anyone?

Since the covenants were originally written the single 'developer' / majority owner has sold off almost all of his lots. (The community is about 40 years old). All in there are around 220 lots, with 180+ home owners.

Are you saying that we CANNOT get their vote changed to a non-vote? Obviously we'd need a majority vote for this to occur, but were we able to get that vote to pass, would the new voting standard not be legal?

If someone's familiar with this, please let me know.

Say, Jordan, to help me understand your situation better, per your RCRs, what percentage of YES votes is required to amend your RCRs?

Must the YES votes be a certain % of all homeowners? A certain % of voters? Or a certain % of a quorum (as defined by your docs) of voters?

Do absentee ballots count towards quorum like they do in Calif.?

Do follow Janet's advice & check the website she gave you. It's possible that state statutes supersede yours and are more lenient than your RCRs.

Do follow Jon's advice & consult with an appropriate attorney.

Hi Jordan:

What do your documents state regarding voting? Do they allow for proxy votes? I have not double checked with your state laws on this very issue (LOL ... laws which are potentially minimal); however, if an individual could cast a proxy vote without being present at the meeting you might be able to better pass the change.