Utter genius (annual HOA meeting)

I just want to say that the system that I developed for collecting electronic votes rather than doing proxies and in-person voting is utter genius.

Today, I had the property manager send out an e-mail blast, using a merge tokens that I taught her how to use, with the electronic voting system. This was less than 1 hour ago and we already have 11 votes. We need a total of 69 votes to meet quorum requirements, so we 16% done within 1 hour of the e-mail. This is an early voting opportunity; our meeting is not until the end of January. We will keep sending out e-mail blasts in January until we reach quorum, but I see no issues with getting there this year.

Prior, we used to collect proxies which I don't agree with philosophically. We also used to have to beg people to come to the meeting. Our neighboring HOA (the arch rival evil cousin of ours) usually has to try mutiple meetings (2, 3, or 4) before they get quorum, which is reallly embarrasing for them. We will hardly have to do anything this year to get quorum.

Electronic voting using my system is utter genius. You can't tell I am proud of it, can you?

It's our annual election where we vote in the Board members who terms are expired.

As posted before, our by-laws do not allow for electronic elections, but our state passed a law allowing for absentee voting. They state that electronic elections are acceptable as long as we can verify that the person who cast the ballot is authorized. By e-mailing a secret 5 digit code unique to each homeowner, we can validate that the person who voted had some information known only to them, which we believe meets the state requirements.

Unlike California, we do not have requirements for secret voting. Homeowner votes are attributed to their name.

It's truly amazing.

As I put on another post, HOAs really can do as they please as long as people don't complain and generally operate in a manner that is accepted by the community. Our by-laws don't describe the number of days in advance that prospective Board members are required to declare their candidacy. This year, we set December 1st as our deadline to give us time to prepare and print the ballots. Our by-laws do state that we are required to take nominations from the floor during the meeting, which we will do. A floor candidate will be way behind in vote total and has zero chance to win, but we will abide by that requirement.

One could say that declaring interest 2 months before the meeting is a bit much, but unless folks complain, that is what we will probably do every year.

As a member of the Board you can't be the one running the elections or numbers, or can't you get that thick skull of yours?

I am neither stupid nor punking you.

It's the reality. If you are doing what the community wants and folks don't complain, you can probably keep doing what you are doing. Obviously, state law must be followed, and one is supposed to follow CC&Rs and by-laws. But many HOAs don't and as long as owners don't complain, they keep doing what they are doing.

Yipes.

This is what the state law says:

(6) Unless prohibited or limited by the declaration or organizational documents, an association may conduct a vote without a meeting. In that event, the following requirements apply:
(a) The association must notify the owners that the vote will be taken by ballot.
(b) The notice must state:
(i) The time and date by which a ballot must be delivered to the association to be counted, which may not be fewer than fourteen days after the date of the notice, and which deadline may be extended in accordance with (g) of this subsection;
(ii) The percent of votes necessary to meet the quorum requirements;
(iii) The percent of votes necessary to approve each matter other than election of board members; and
(iv) The time, date, and manner by which owners wishing to deliver information to all owners regarding the subject of the vote may do so.
(c) The association must deliver a ballot to every owner with the notice.
(d) The ballot must set forth each proposed action and provide an opportunity to vote for or against the action.
(e) A ballot cast pursuant to this section may be revoked only by actual notice to the association of revocation. The death or disability of an owner does not revoke a ballot unless the association has actual notice of the death or disability prior to the date set forth in (b)(i) of this subsection.
(f) Approval by ballot pursuant to this subsection is valid only if the number of votes cast by ballot equals or exceeds the quorum required to be present at a meeting authorizing the action.
(g) If the association does not receive a sufficient number of votes to constitute a quorum or to approve the proposal by the date and time established for return of ballots, the board may extend the deadline for a reasonable period not to exceed eleven months upon further notice to all members in accordance with (b) of this subsection. In that event, all votes previously cast on the proposal must be counted unless subsequently revoked as provided in this section.
(h) A ballot or revocation is not effective until received by the association.
(i) The association must give notice to owners of any action taken pursuant to this subsection within a reasonable time after the action is taken.
(j) When an action is taken pursuant to this subsection, a record of the action, including the ballots or a report of the persons appointed to tabulate such ballots, must be kept with the minutes of meetings of the association.

No he's not wrong. The problem is he embraces this attitude when it fits his needs.

I agree with that.

John, I do my very best to run our HOA in a manner that is compliant with state laws, CC&Rs, and our by-laws. In fact, we took a Board vote on that and uniamously vote in favor. (That was my version of a code of conduct for the Board). I also try to be as fair, equal, and thoughtful of all people in our community and the other Board members. We are not a rogue board and I don't use my board position to better myself.

I try my best. Too hard, at times, but my best.

Yes, I've posted before that we don't have competitive elections. Rather we have to beg people to run.

If we had competitive and contested elections, we'd need a more advanced system that what we do, and it would be best if the elections were not run by a candidate in the same election.

By ballot, Jeff, do you mean mail-in/absentee ballot? That's what we do in CA and my HOA nd we always make quorum and no one uses proxies (and we've banned quorum requirement & proxies in our recent Bylaws rewrite)

I agree.

Usually people complain before they hire a lawyer to file a lawsuit. Complain to the property manager, complain to the board, complain on social media.

I follow our Board docs as closely as I can. They are confusing to read but I've done my best and also attended numerous HOA sessions put on by a HOA law group in our local area.

What I don't necessarily follow is Washington State Non-Profit Corporation Act. I don't enjoy reading RCWs and the non profit corporation act is complex and lengthy. I've chosen to ignore it because that is beyond my call of duty as volunteer board member. If an issue comes up that is not covered by our by-laws, I defer to our attorneys who are good at that kind of thing.

Most associations send out/use a General Proxy. Some say it helps the BOD control the voting. Also one could disregard the BOD Proxy and make their own. One could even use the BOD General Proxy and reword it to be a Directed Proxy. If the OP wants to get elected, she should be spending time gathering Proxies for her use.

Yes we do as our attorney advised us that as long as we accept nominations for the floor as per our Bylaws that a nominating committee is a waste of time. If challenged we would probably bring it back versus try to amend it out. We would also clarify they cannot eliminate any candidate currently in good standing. We have our PM verify a member nominated from the floor is in good standing prior to voting. We do not try to eliminate anyone from running just because we do not like you. If an owner is in good standing, they will be allowed to run even when they are known as as a Ahole. We have had a few of them try.......LOL