proxy vote

I am president of a small HOA (83 lots). We had our general meeting for election of BOD. The proxy was mailed to each homeowner with the dues letter. A homeowner had a copy of the proxy (we
have had the same proxy for 18 years)and solicited the neighborhood for proxies, if they were not going to the meeting. A home complained at our general meeting that was not legal. I was under the impression a proxy could be made by anyone and given to someone to vote for them, if they were not going to be present at the election, even if they knew a month or so before the meeting. The complaining homeowner stated it had to be the proxy mailed with the dues letter. Who's correct? Asking from Florida.

Betty, if there are not restrictions on number of proxies which can be assigned to one person and a copy of the official proxy form was used then I think the homeowner's actions were perfectly legal as long as it was properly executed. The complaining homeowner is wrong (obviously they just didn't like what was done).

Hi Betty,

I am new to HOATalk, but your post greatly interested me. We have had a similar problem for years at our Association with one member of the community soliciting proxies for every matter that comes forward and, at times, holding up to 40% of the vote with their gained proxy rights. This has been perfectly legal based on how proxy voting rights were assigned in the governing documents.

We are currently going through the process to eliminate proxy voting and institute absentee ballots to alleviate the problem. I am not sure of other opinions out there, but when you are dealing with a small HOA (ours is 97 units, so similar in size to yours), it becomes quite easy for one member to dominate almost every issue because they can gather proxies from surrounding neighbors and if only a basic quorum of members show at the meeting, they can swing the vote in any manner which they desire.

The one key difference in our community is that we have never mailed a proxy form to homeowners. Instead, the one member, has a brother who is a lawyer, would draw up a legal-type document for her use alone on each issue. I can tell you that if you were to keep the proxy voting rights of members that we have had problems in the past of homeowners misunderstanding that only those on the deed can pass along the rights. We have received proxy forms that were signed by teenagers and others and have had to verify signatures due to this confusion. We have also had elderly members of the community who put their trust in their neighbor in signing over their rights, but when later asked about the matter do not understand that they have turned over their voting rights for that entire meeting to someone else, muting their own voice. These matters combine to motivate our Association to amend the ByLaws/Covenants to absentee ballots to alleviate the problem. Not sure if this will help you out, but wanted to share that others are experiencing a similar plight. From NC...