Board President acting as tellar

For our upcoming election, it appears that I (as Board president) will also be acting as election teller. That is I'll be the one doing the vote counting and determining the election outcome. As you may have read previously, we are doing electronic and paper ballots, and the electronic ballots are on my account, so the system is only accessible to me.

I'd like to make sure there are no conflict of interest issues with the board president also being the teller for the election. Clearly, it would be preferable to have a disinterested 3rd party run the election, but we don't have one, and also have a shortage of community volunteers. So I am the volunteer who agreed to take this on cradle to grave.

Any issues?

Can you get a second homeowner to verify the results? We always use two homeowners (not board members) to do the count and announce the result.

You say you don't have an independent party to do the counting,but didn't say it you or your board colleagues went door to door, if necessary, to ask.

No election system should be in the hands of one person and If there wasn't a way to have at least two people together tabulating, perhaps the board should have gone with paper ballots only. If people are that apathetic, you'd probably have fewer ballots to count anyway.

This "everybody's apathetic" doesn't fly - it may be true, but that's all the more reason the board should have thought more carefully before going electronic. If This was all your idea, you should have known better. Everyone on that board could have taken a group of homes and gone door to door asking for help. If the volunteers are trained properly the counting everyone it take all night. If you wind up with several volunteers, one group can count during the meeting and the rest can recount to ensure accuracy and then the election will be official.

Regarding the electronic system, you can broadcast the screen in front of everyone after logging in so they can see what you're doing. Hopefully, it tabulated how many votes were cast and who got X number of votes. Both sets of votes should be added at the meeting, so if you have, say, 100 homes, one vote per unit, the totals shouldn't exceed 100.

After the meeting, revisit the electronic system to determine if there's something else that can be used and accessible by at least two people. The free survey system I've used (y'all know which I'm talking about) allows you to designate another person review he numbers (like the board secretary) and there are a few other bells and whistles you can purchase that can be helpful.

I will add:

Do any of the candidates' object to your tallying the votes?

If not, explain the situation to owners, try some of the other suggestions here, and proceed to be the vote counter.

Personally I would not do this simply because I would not want to deal with anyone challenging the election somewhere down the road. I would hire a body for the day to do the count.

Our board would have the Secretary oversee the count and ask for two volunteers from the membership (typically at the meeting) to do the actual count.

Say, Henry, some of us respond to your posts and offer ideas and ask questions. But you and to ignore the latter and move on to new topics. Can you reply to my questions above?

In the state that I am in, it also says "An inspector may, but need not, be a director, member, officer, or employee of the membership corporation.".

Which is loose.

So it really comes down to how it is worded in your state and governing documents.

Honestly, Henry, you seem so evasive sometimes. Did the Board appoint you as teller?? You don't need your attorney to answer that question.

I think the others would be clear in the WA statutes. In CA Owners have the right to oversee the vote tabulations, and ballots musts be kept for a year in case an owner wants to review the. I think he latter if pretty common and maybe the former.