destroying ballots after trustee election

Our HOA's annual meeting and election of trustees is in two days. Tellers will be counting the ballots at the beginning of the meeting.

Last week a member wrote that the ballots should be destroyed right after the election, and I see in Robert's Rules of Order that the membership could vote to destroy the ballots.

Do we need to wait at least a few days to see if any member wants to inspect the ballots or if a recount is requested, or could we vote to destroy the ballots that night?

Thanks very much,

HOA Secretary

Tim,

This may be reference to Youngtown, Arizona. The entire city (not very big) was turned into a 55+ community back in the 1950's or 60's. The city routinely forced anyone under 18 to move out and that went on for decades. About 10 or 15 years ago they tried to evict the under-18 grandchild of a resident who fought back. In the course of litigation they discovered that not everyone had agreed to the restrictions years earlier, making them invalid. The town subsequently gave up its age enforcements.

I do not believe that this went beyond the trial court so there is no published opinion from an appellate court. All that I know about it is what I think I remember from the newspapers at the time. My understanding was that to enact the original restrictions they needed 100% of the property owners at that time to approve its adoption but not all owners approved. This case required going back years to find the approvals, but I suspect that they had been recorded with the county as they were property restrictions and not just ballots.

Your state's laws about your type of association (a corporation?) might spell out how long to keep ballots. I can't imagine, by the way, if any of your documents or state law says that they must be destroyed!

In CA HOAs, we are required by law to keep the secret ballots themselves for one year. The vote tabulation results not only must be recorded in the minutes, but must be publicized to homeowners. We post the results of tabulations on our mail room bulletin boards for a couple of weeks