California Election of Directors

I have a question that I hope you can answer. Our HOA Condo complex in California consist of 265 individually owned investors. Some owners may own 8-9 units and during the opening of the ballots I happen to notice that one envelope being opened was being counted for 15 votes towards a candidate. I am not on the Board but I do know from a list who the owners are in this complex and no one person owns 15 units. Can you tell me if returned ballots should count as 1 towards a candidate and disqualify any other number. Our CC&R's do not spell out if accumulative voting is allowed or not allowed.

Let me get this straight. If their is 1 position open and 1 owner has 5 units, then he is allowed to have 5 votes in for that 1 person, or If there are 3 positions open and the 1 owner has 5 units, then he is allowed to have 5 votes to split between the 3 positions, is that correct? or is he allowed 5 votes for each 3 positions giving him 15 votes. Sorry, I'm new to the process.

The very first thing you need to know is if Owners could cumulate their votes. This is called "cumulative voting." Not your CC&Rs but your Bylaws say whether your HOA allows cumulative voting. The letter you received with your ballot will state if this election was held using cumulative voting---or not. Ask your Prop. Mgr (PM) for another copy of the materials that accompanied your ballot.

Richard explains it pretty well. We just had an election and cumulative voting was allowed. There were 3 candidates for three openings on the board. Each condo unit, then, had three votes. All could go to one candidate, 2 to one/1 to another, or one vote to each of the three. Obviously if an owner owns five units and there are three candidates, the owner could cast all 15 votes for one person.

But our Election Rules requires that a separate ballot be sent for each unit. (Can't recall if this is state law or not; Richard will know.) So...the Owner of 5 condos is required to send 5 ballots in 5 double envelopes. No ballot would have more than three votes in whatever arrangement the voter wants. If more than 3 votes appeared on any ballot, our inspectors of election voided that ballot. They had to void 6 ballots because the total on each was more than three.

If we ever amend our bylaws, we'll dump cumulative voting.

For a lot of info about CA HOAs, Sylvia, visit davis-stirling.com and scroll trough their Main Index for topics that interest you.

Cumulative voting was one thing we had the developer remove from our Bylaws prior to the transition to we owners.

If your governing documents do not specify cumulative voting, your HOA's Board of Directors may not tell voters that they can vote cumulatively. So far as I know the whole election would be invalid, but I might be wrong.

Did you read the Davis-stirling.com citation that Richard kindly provided to you?

What DO your Bylaws say about cumulative voting, Sylvia?

A cumulative voting election permits voters in an election for more than one seat to put more than one vote on a preferred candidate. When voters in the minority concentrate their votes in this way, it increases their chances of obtaining representation in a legislative body. This is different from bloc voting, where a voter may not vote more than once for any candidate, and 51% of voters can control 100% of representation.

Cumulative voting was mainly used to allow minorities to have a larger voice in an election.

That is correct. The intent was to prevent to majority stockholders from packing the board with their toadies. It has, at times, been applied to municipal elections but eventually falls out of favor because voters do not understand the concept.