Balloting

My Maryland hoa is looking to clarify some things and make some updates that will require community balloting.
We are looking for advice in how to perform electronic balloting with consideration towards bylaw voting, etc.
We are trying to make the balloting process fair and timely but we have not had the response of numbers required to exact a resolution. Has anyone had positive results from electronic balloting and how did you implement it?

As Kerry said, if you're looking to revise your bylaws to allow electronic voting, that's a different process than doing the voting itself, so get the voting issues addressed first, poll your community to see if most of the homeowners are willing to try this and go from there.

We don't use electronic balloting, but I'm thinking some of the issues you'll have to consider are:

would the association provide a link where people could go to vote or would the ballot be sent by email?
if sent by email, how do you ensure the ballot actually gets to the right homeowner?
is there a risk of ballots being lost if returned by email? Will the homeowner be allowed to vote again if that happens?
how can you ensure the ballot is actually completed by the homeowner?
how will the ballots be counted and who will count them?
will the ballots be considered part of the association's permanent records? If so, how do you preserve them?
what will you do about proxies?
what will you do about people who don't have a computer or email access (there are a few left!)

You may want to talk to your association attorney about the pros and cons of electronic voting, and see if your property manager knows of any associations that are doing this or have tried to do it. Get contact information for their boards and talk to their officers about what worked and didn't.

Doug, once you have determined if you can legally use electronic balloting, here are some considerations (the standard "I am not an attorney and do not practice law" caveats apply:

1. Unless your governing documents specifically authorize the use an electronic delivery process, you will still be required to provide notice of the meeting and election by hard copy via US Mail or a similar delivery process.

2. The use of an electronic ballot may increase participation/responses or it may not. In our case it did, by about 15%.

3. The use of electronic balloting will not decrease your expenses, they will be increased, as you have to pay for the service. I do not recommend attempting to manage the electronic balloting in house to ensure impartiality in managing the results. There are several commercial firms which provide this service, Google "electronic voting for HOAs" or something similar. They provide a range of services.

4. The electronic balloting process we used last year, and will use again this year, provides a security code process, similar to a PIN, which is unique to each property owner. We included the discrete PIN on each ballot. We created and assigned the unique PINs to the service provider, which then incorporated the PIN into the ballot which was accessed when the property owner logged in. Once that PIN had been used, it could not be used again. There is a process for changing a vote, which involves a manual access process by the administrator.

5. ISTR there is a way to conduct a survey. We used the service last spring and I've not looked at it since.

6. You should check with the association attorney to ensure your Governing Documents allow the use of electronic balloting. Even if they are legal in your state, your governing documents may not support the process.

Good luck. We found it worked well, but there was a learning curve of some hours. We were provided a test scenario in which we learned how to use the product, devise the ballot, and create a small survey. Of course you have to write an instruction set to include in your meeting notice packet.

Does MD permit absentee/mail in votes? CA does and that helped boost participation.

When you say "necessary changes," Doug, do you mean changes that are mandated by MD?? Or, put another way, why are they "necessary"? What percentage of Owners are required to revise your bylaws??

Yep, most if not all of us here are volunteers in our HOAs. And for many of all, getting HOA members to participate isn't easy! You're not alone.

Bill of TX offers some good tips that address your original question!

Thank you for the good advice in looking up the state laws on this.

For Maryland I found the Maryland homeowners association act:
"§ 11B-113.2. Electronic transmission of votes or proxies.
(a) In general. -- Notwithstanding language contained in the governing documents
of the homeowners association, the board of directors or other governing body of the
homeowners association may authorize lot owners to submit a vote or proxy by electronic
transmission if the electronic transmission contains information that verifies that the vote
or proxy is authorized by the lot owner or the lot owner’s proxy.
(b) When anonymous voting required. -- If the governing documents of the
homeowners association require voting by secret ballot and the anonymity of voting by
electronic transmission cannot be guaranteed, voting by electronic transmission shall be
permitted if lot owners have the option of casting anonymous printed ballots."

Since our bylaws do not state written, secret, blind, or otherwise we may have an option here as long as we abide by one vote per lot and continue to provide for the written vote as well.

Hi Doug
Typically, we don't even get 50% of the available votes. So sure, I'd love the Board to decide what's in my best interest because my neighbors are apathetic.

NO, we do not have such a policy.

I would strongly fight to change such a policy if my Association had one, I would not purchase in an Association that had one and, If I was unable to change the policy - I would be very tempted to sell and move.

Additionally, there is no such thing as a proxy ballot. There are proxies and ballots. The two are not mixed. Often when a directed proxy (one that directs the proxy representative on how to cast their votes) is used, it is often called a ballot. However, it is not. You would still need a ballot to go with every proxy form accepted.

The HOA currently has a provision stated in the by laws that a bylaw change requires 60 percent of members or proxies to achieve a quorum. Failing that, another vote may be called and half that percentage will constitute a quorum (30 percent). There is no direction beyond that. I was thinking there might be an electronic option to vote or maybe deliver an absentee vote somewhere along the line to prevent entering the undefined circumstance. Any and all changes or amendments to bylaws are first reviewed by the HOA attorney but we would like to provide him with something close to limit attorney expense.
I agree, clear it with the attorney first.

So what should happen if the lower level quorum (2nd Vote) is not achieved?

JohnC46,
Thanks,
Good to know.