How does one correct HOA Board election error?

Our HOA had a board election recently in which the total number of the votes assigned to the 6 candidates for the three board positions exceeded the maximum possible votes from the 26 valid ballots. Each homeowner had a maximum of 3 votes, so that there could only have been a maximum of 3X26= 78 votes. Yet the 6 candidates votes total was 96, or 18 votes (the equivalent of 6 ballots) more than the maximum possible.

Here's the problem: When the management company rep was asked to reaffirm the vote count and explain the discrepancy between the number of ballots received, and the number of votes announced by her at the meeting, despite repeated requests, she has refused to disclose or confirm them.

There were also two other problems with the election. The rep had permitted the 17 year old son of one of the candidates to open the ballot envelopes and to hand her the ballots. The mother of this boy subsequently ended up with the highest votes. And, our association has 54 homes. Therefore a quorum (51% or more) would be 28 (not 27) ballots.

My Question is:

How can I get the management company rep to make available to me the full count of the number of votes received by each candidate? I have requested the numbers from the rep 3 times since the mid-September election, but have not received these, to date. She provided the ballot count at 27 less 1, which had 6 votes.

Does the State Attorney's office help homeowners with election dispute or fraud? To whom can a homeowner turn for help in situations such as this?

Thank you.

Ishita,

Instead of asking for a recount and an explanation, ask to see the ballots and do the recount yourself.

Are you on the Board? If not, bring this issue to the Board as well and have one of them do a recount with you.

If there were 28 ballots (but one was deemed invalid) then there were 28 lots/units represented at the meeting. This means that there was a quorum.

Keep in mind that a quorum is not determined by the number of ballots cast. It is determined by the number of lots/units represented (in person or, if allowed, by proxy) at the meeting. This number would be obtained by the Associations sign-in sheet for the meeting.

Understood. However, that would be similar to counting proxies, as I understand it. If voting by mail is allowed, then the number of ballots received by mail (in addition to those who chose to attend the meeting and cast a ballot in person) would be counted.

From Davisp-Stirling site: A "quorum" of the membership is the required minimum of number of member votes present in person, by proxy and/or by ballot before the association may conduct business at a membership meeting. (Robert's Rules, 11th ed., pp. 21, 345.)

Either way you count it, since there were 28 ballots, then there was a quorum.

Quorum is based on in person, by proxy or secret ballot. An invalid outer envelope, if someone did't sign, will not count towards quorum. The ballot, if it had 6 votes would be invalidated from the election, not quorum.

No, our HOA has been around for 20 years and is not under developer control. We have 54 homes, each of which is permitted 3 votes, the management company rep says that she received 27 ballots in all, one of which she disqualified because it had 6 votes, which gave her 26 valid ballots from which to draw her votes. Our quorum at 51% should have been 28 ballots (and not 27). The vote total for all 6 candidates adds up to 96 votes. Yet 26 ballots X 3 votes each can only give a maximum of 78 votes. Therefore the election gave us 18 more votes than would be possible with 26 valid ballots. Based on these unexplained additional votes, the rep announced a 3-way tie between the three second-highest vote receivers (myself and two others) for the two remaining board slots (in the 3 member BOD).

The management company rep has refused to explain this discrepancy. She permitted the 17 year old son of one of the candidates (who also ended up with getting the highest number of votes) to remove the ballots from their unmarked envelopes and to hand them to her for counting. The rep did the counting of the votes. There is no doubt that there are some serious problems with this vote counting process.

My question is, what legal recourse do I (as a homeowner and one of the candidates with the highest votes) have to get the management company rep to take the legally correct action: to disclose the discrepancy between the ballots and the votes, and to conduct a new election? It is in this that I need help on this discussion board.

Thanks very much.

I am on the old Board, but also a candidate for the new Board. Therefore, I am hesitant to touch the ballots myself, lest I get accused of votes tampering. All three members of the old board were candidates were candidates for the election. One of the old board members has her friend on this newly elected board, and is therefore very content with the results, and does like the questioning of the votes discrepancy. The other one received the lowest number of votes and would rather leave the election results alone. I received the second highest number of votes, along with two others. The highest number of votes went to woman whose 17-year old son helped the management company rep count the votes by handing her the ballots. Since there were two open board positions and 3 people with tied votes for these positions, there should have been a runoff election. The management company rep said that she would not do a runoff election. So, people who had served on the previous board were asked to step down to give new people a chance. All that may have been fine if we didn't end up with 96 votes from 26 valid ballots, when the maximum votes any ballot could have is 3.

My question on this HOAtalk discussion board is: What legal recourse do I have to force the management company rep to make an open declaration to the previous and "newly elected" board that the election results are unreliable at best, and fraudulent at worst? She also needs to get an attorney's advice on this issue, which she has refused to do so far. I have suggested that she conduct a new election, but she has screamed that she is being harassed by these questions and it is causing her to have health issues. She will not conduct a re-election unless the "newly elected" board asks her to do so.

What is my legal recourse? In which court does such a complaint get filed? Does it need to go to court, or is there another authority that can intervene to resolve this issue?

Thanks for your input.

I thought that Small Claims Courts only dealt with monetary disputes of $5000 or less. We have no monetary dispute in this election votes discrepancy issue. So is there another court that reviews such complaints?

Thanks.

Only Small Claims Court

I'm not saying this happened, but generally quorum is going to based upon Voting Power, though eligible to vote and have not had their voting rights suspended. If 4 owners were delinquent and properly had their voting rights suspended, then quorum would be 26 in your case. The ballot with 6 votes still would count toward quorum. The candidate's son should not have been allowed to handle any of the ballots, that is a clear violation of Civil Code.