Vote for Board Members

Our community had our annual meeting, along with the election for new board members. The current board members, with one addition was on the ballot. When you walked into the meeting, the Board members, the Secretary and Treasurer, who were current board members, were having our members sign in and drop their ballot in a box. Once the annual meeting started, the 2 board members collecting the votes, who were on the ballot, stayed behind and counted the votes. About 45 minutes later, one of the board members counting the votes peeked into the meeting to call the other 3 current board members to the room (separated from the meeting in a completely separate back room)where they were counting the votes. Several people in the meeting immediately said they must be going over the ballots, and shouldn't "you", the new person be invited to the "secret room"? About 5 minutes later, the 5 current board members entered the room and made a grand announcement, your board will be, and announced that the current board members will remain the same.

ByLaws:
The Association Board of Directors shall consist of a minimum of three (3) and a maximum of five (5) persons. The Association Board of Directors shall be Members of the Association in good standing. The Association Board of Directors shall be elected by a majority of the votes of Members by secret ballot, of Members present at a duly called Homeowners’ Association meeting. Should there be a tie vote in the first secret ballot, another vote shall be taken including all candidates from the first ballot. Robert's Rules of order regarding voting, ballot distribution, counting, and reporting shall be followed in the voting process.

Can someone give me the details of what theses rules are? "Robert's Rules of order regarding voting, ballot distribution, counting, and reporting shall be followed in the voting process."

Thanks!!

What Mark describes, Sheri, is very similar to the bylaws in my HOA and are required by CA statute about homeowner associations no matter what size. In CA, we must count the ballot where any owner can observe the tabulations, by the way.

Does TN have any election statutes for HOAs? What size is your HOA? Is there nothing in your own documents, probably the bylaws, about elections? The very idea that candidates for director Could count th ballots in secret is ridiculous!!

Do an internet search for Robert's Rules of Order, and you will find out much more about what they are. There are books you can buy and lots of info online. Posters here know of good sites to go to, but try this one: www.rulesonline.com

As pointed out, the "process" your HOA utilized wasn't good or proper. Maybe the folks did their best (not sure how 'new' they are to all of it) . . . but even their best is a pretty bad attempt at the process and proves they barely read (if read at all) the bylaw excerpt you posted.

That said, if there is debate about the counting, validity of the votes, or who should/shouldn't be on the Board, perhaps it's not too late to ask the Board about that, point out the issues in regard to voting procedure (using references to Roberts Rules about what's proper), and politely request that as a starting point, the votes be recounted by a group of uninvolved homeowners with whoever wants to also be present (assuming ballots haven't been trashed). If existing Board Members have nothing to hide, then they should be fine with that. If they insist on being secretive about it or ballots have been destroyed, then you need to decide what its worth to you to potentially battle with the Board for a re-do of the election (following Robert's Rules of course).

Thank y'all for the comments. I just really felt that it was very unethical, which many of the boards actions have been questionable. I personally would have never had a vote counted by the people on the ballot. That would be like the presidential candidates counting their own votes. I will have to see if I can rally the members to make a change.

John,

They came out and announced the voting result. Members that showed up in person, or by proxy, was allowed to vote, so if 10 people showed up, the results were by vote count. The current board has served 2 (2) year term and really do not want outsiders. There were at least 40 people that showed up, so the president could have easily appointed another homeowner to count the votes. Just seemed unethical. Not going to give them a pass on not knowing. These are people in their late 50's +. By the time you are that age, you can process what the appearance of a situation could imply. It is fine if they were re-elected, but just the ethical practice of the current board counting the votes on a election that they were on the ballot.

Thanks for the reply.

Sheri

Another and a more plausible thought occurred to me. I will bet they had Proxy vote made out to the BOD and they met to decide who to cast those votes for. Perfectly legal though one way an existing BOD tries to stay in power.

In our past election (3 of 5) we decided the remaining two (the pres and myself, VP) would decide how to cast proxy votes we had that were made out to the BOD. All for naught. Only three ran so they were automatically on the BOD. We did not even vote........LOL