Board Candidates

I know it sounds crazy, but we have an election for open board seats coming up and the board won't tell us who is on the ballot, or if anyone at all is on the ballot. Some have asked our appointed board communication liason if anyone is on the ballot, and after saying she would check with the president she has now refused to respond to any inquiries.

Is it normal to withhold who the candidates are, or even refuse to answer inquiries about the candidates?

Our practice, which I think is fairly standard, is to send a 1st notice about 30 days before the meeting asking for candidates, and a 2nd notice about 15 days before the meeting with all of the candidate names on our ballot/proxy form. Included with the 2nd notice is a half page bio on each of the candidates.

Can you provide a bit more detail about your HOA's practices?

CfD

In many places nominations can be accepted from the floor at the time of the election thus any ballot done prior to that might well not contain the name of all candidates.

I say the function of a BOD is to be sure the elections follows the Bylaws, not to be an aid to a candidate in politicking such as distributing political information. It is the candidates job to do such.

My BOD is presently having such a discussion. I say we announce when the election will be held (at our Annual Meeting). We state how many vacancies exist. We vet the candidates to be sure they are eligible. We announce who is running. We provide an up to date owners mailing list to any candidate requesting such from which they can do their own mailing. We arrange for proxies/ballots to be counted.

I am torn as to how much the BOD should do before it crosses the line of being a candidates friend, worker, campaign, etc.

John,

Our Documents allow nominations from the floor. In the proxy we specify that this is allowed and that all candidates may not be known. We then include spaces for write-ins.

Our ballots also include spaces for write-in candidates.

At the meeting we ask if there are any nominations from the floor (ok, we typically beg for nominations from the floor because it's rare that we have a full set of nominees). We list their names on a white board and then pass out the ballots.

Tim

I started another discussion about this.

Thanks

Correct, voting by mail is typically not used unless authorized within the governing documents.
The closest we get is directed proxies.

Per VA § 13.1-855 (which does defer to the Articles of Incorporation) requires that elections take place at meetings:

Directors shall be elected or appointed in the manner provided in the articles of incorporation. If the corporation has members with voting privileges, directors shall be elected at the first annual members' meeting and at each annual meeting thereafter unless their terms are staggered

However goofy you think absentee/mail-in ballots are, we never have trouble making quorum, JohnC..

But how do others here interpret the following, from your bylaws, JohnC? "...candidates shall have a reasonable opportunity to communicate their qualifications to the voting members and to solicit votes."

Does that mean they can all speak at a special meeting before the election? Does that mean the HOA should pay to send out a bio of each and their names?? You seem to think, JohnC, that it only means that candidates can have the address list of owners.

It could mean many things. What do others think????

Kerry

Do keep in mind this is our first election. I am on the BOD (VP and Treasurer) so I have some say in how we run the election. I want an open and fair election thus I am looking for suggestions how to make it such, but candidly I believe many have gone overboard creating rules/laws concerning them.

I do not think absentee/mail-in ballots are goofy. I do think the double secret type stuff surrounding them can be. In general elections one has to request such. I do not think the association should have to absorb the cost of sending such out to all owners.

I am not in favor of the association absorbing costs to mail out candidate bio information. I am in favor of providing our mailing list and let the candidates do so on their own dime.

I am having issues with the logistics of candidates speaking at the Annual Meeting. Does one give the ballots out when owners register and then have them vote after the candidates speak? We also allow Proxies so we have to account for them. This could make for a long drawn out night. Not against such, just trying to get my head around the logistics.

Some have suggested a candidates night prior to the election. I like that idea, but as we do not have a clubhouse/location we would have to rent a site to have such. Same as we have too pay for our Annual Meeting.

We have made arrangements for candidates to be able to submit a "resume" to be published in the 3 editions of our monthly electronic newsletter prior to the election. There is also talk about a special election edition of the newsletter two weeks prior to the election. I say arrangements as the BOD does not control the newsletter's content. The newsletter reaches about 70% of our owners.

Each home has a USPS letter box stand with a box attached to the side for newspaper insertion. A candidate could have flyers printed up and inserted in that newspaper box,

I am open to suggestions.

We hand out ballots and meeting packets as the members sign in at the front door.
The Treasure has a list of who is delinquent and therefore may not vote.
The Secretary or election official receives the proxy and the proxy rep signs in for that owner.
Once a proxy has been received, a ballot for the proxy is handed out.

We don't care when the members fill out the ballots during the meeting.
We simply allow a time frame for it to happen (typically 5-10 min. is all that is required).
When we have candidates speak, we limit the time to 3 min per candidate. Typically, they take less time.

Our meetings typically run 90 min. 60 for the Reports and election, 30 for the open forum.

One thing that helps keep the meeting short is to have the Officers and committees prepare written reports. Then the officer simply mentions highlights, directs the members attention to the written report and asks if there are any questions. Typically, only the Presidents and the Treasurer's reports take the most time (10-15 min each) depending on the questions raised.

We use buildings owned by our township at no charge.

I also agree that a short bio of each candidate go out in US mail to all owners with the meeting notice and proxy form. Invite owners to submit this bio and DO limit the words to 150 or a similar number.

Beyond that, candidates might want to take further steps.

Again, you'd write as we do, and apparently Tim's HOA does, that the "known" candidates are etc., etc.

We tried a "Candidates Night" a couple of times in the past and the turnout was pathetic. Candidates also don't speak at the annual meeting as most here already have voted by then (because of mail in voting). The election IS that night as that's when the secret ballots are counted.

How did you do it in the other HOAs where you've owned, JohnC?

I'm curious about your newsletter, which you say your HOA doesn't publish. Who does?? Only using it does not reach all owners. Mailboxes don't either unless you're 100% owner occupied.