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JosephH2 (Pennsylvania)
Posts: 57
Posted:
I am recent president of an HOA with 45 townhomes and 35 semi-attached houses in Pennsylvania.

Our by-laws state:

3.3 Election and Term of Office.

3.3.1 At the annual meeting of the Association the election of members of the Executive Board shall be held. The term of office of any Executive Board member to be elected shall be fixed at three years. The members of the Executive Board shall hold office until the earlier to occur of the election of their respective successors or their death, adjudication of incompetency, removal, or resignation. An Executive Board member may serve an unlimited number of terms and may succeed himself.

3.3.2 Persons qualified to be members of the Executive Board may be nominated for election only as follows:

1. Any Unit Owner may submit to the Secretary at least thirty days before the meeting at which the election is to be held a nominating petition signed by five or more Unit Owners, together with a statement that the person nominated is willing to serve on the Executive Board and a biographical sketch of the nominee. The Secretary shall mail or hand deliver the submitted items to every (J n it Owner along with the notice of such meeting; and

2. Nominations may be submitted from the Floor at the meeting at which the election is held for each vacancy on the Executive Board for which no more than one person has been nominated by petition.

This spring we will have 2 board positions up for election.

My issues mainly concern the last item quoted:

1.The rule about nominations from the floor seems to imply that we need to hold 2 separate elections with candidates nominated for each separate opening. In the past when there were 2 openings, one election was held and the openings went to the two highest vote getters.

2.The same rule seems to imply that we need 4 persons who petition or we must take nominations from the floor.

Has anyone dealt with this before and what is your interpretation of the procedure we should follow? Do we need 2 elections and does it take 2 or 4 petitions to preclude nominations from the floor.
TimB4 (Tennessee)
Posts: 21,061
Posted:
You hold one election.

We have nominations from the floor all the time.

The Ballot should have the names of the announced candidates and spaces for write-in candidates.

Prior to voting, you ask if there are any further nominations. If there are, you make a notation of who is being nominated (we use a portable dry erase Board to write the names on). If any member wishes to vote for the candidate who was nominated from the floor, they would write that name on the ballot.

If you do not want to have any nominations from the floor, your governing documents, based on what you cited, says that you will then need to offer at least two candidates per available seat. If you have two candidates for one seat and one candidate for the other seat, you then need to allow nominations from the floor.

My experience has been that if there are enough announced candidates prior to the election, nobody nominates anyone from the floor. However, you still have to ask if there are any further nominations (as this has you complying with your governing documents).

Hope this helps,

Tim
JosephH2 (Pennsylvania)
Posts: 57
Posted:
Tim - Thanks very much for the advice.

I have one more question.

With one election does each member get one or two votes?

We are not allowed cumulative voting.

JoeH
TimB4 (Tennessee)
Posts: 21,061
Posted:
They would get one vote per seat being filled.

If you have two positions to be filled, the members get two votes and may vote for two people. We actually elect 5 positions every year. I've attached a sanitized version of our ballot from last year which may be helpful.

Tim

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JosephH2 (Pennsylvania)
Posts: 57
Posted:
Tim - Thanks again.

We'll be using your ballot for our election

JoeH

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