CAM and Bd President & tainted election

Pat

My initial blush is he did nothing wrong. He got of his a$$ and worked on it. Good for him. There is a lesson here.

Is it not an issue that the Pres had blank ballots, had unsealed envelopes, and thus had the opportunity to replace the owner's ballot with a ballot that he filled in himself before sealing the envelope?

First off, anyone who felt intimidated by the board president could have told him no. Soliciting votes in not wrong. He asked, they complied, their fault.

However #1: I agree that the election procedures sound a bit loosey goosey and should be tightened up.

However #2: any election favors incumbents, if for no other reason than they know the system and how to make it work in their favor.

People who don't like what's going on need to get busy in order to change things: the incumbents aren't going to hand them the election. If the CAM was able to give the president additional copies of the ballot, it says to me that these were plain paper and not specially-printed and numbered forms. Which says to me that anyone could have made their own copies and gone door-to-door soliciting their own votes. Why didn't they?

People who are unhappy should learn from this and prepare to run their own campaigns next year. Unseating incumbents can be hard work, and if you're elected to the board, you're in for even harder work. Educate yourself so that you know what you're letting yourself in for.

MarkW is right about this one in Calif. Statutes requires that any materials available to any Assoc. member, i.e, blank ballots must be available to all who request them.

But as practiced by Patric's prez, would be illegal in CA HOAs. Maybe a FL poster can offer an opinion, Patric, based on FL statutes. By the way, what do your bylaws say about elections?

You should verify that ballots were send as "required by statute" since FS 718 controls the sending of notices and ballots where there will be a meeting with an election. Your Bylaws can't override the statute here. There are more materials than just "ballots" that must be sent out in advance of an election. Such as information sheets for each candidate (if the candidate supplied one) that must be sent out with the "Second Notice" of the meeting. If they were sent out by the association in advance of the president's walkabout, then he probably didn't need to carry them himself. But if they were not, then you could argue that the entire election effort was unlawful.

FS 718.111(1)(d) says, "Forgery of a ballot envelope or voting certificate used in a condominium association election is punishable as provided in s. 831.01...". Was the president forging any signatures on ballot envelopes? That would be wrong. Or was he just watching the owners fill out a ballot, sealing the envelopes, and signing the outer envelope? That might be OK.

Florida Administrative Code (61B-23.0021) says, "The envelope shall either be mailed or hand delivered to the association," and FS 718.112(2)(d)4.a says, "A unit owner may not authorize any other person to vote his or her ballot, and any ballots improperly cast are invalid."

FAC 61B.23.0021 also says that the Second Notice "... shall not contain any communication by the board that endorses, disapproves, or otherwise comments on any candidate."

Does filling out a ballot, sealing it in an inner and outer envelope, signing the outer envelope, and handing it to the president constitute "delivery" to the association? I would contend it does not if the president, running for re-election to the board, is acting as a "delivery man" who then turns the envelopes over to someone else.

Maybe the guy is just doing some campaigning and putting in an effort to ask people for their vote. That would be OK. I'd question whether he and/or the board have dotted their i's and crossed all the t's in order to make sure they're complying with all of Florida's mandated election procedures for condos. I would really woeey about that. So much depends on the details.