Is it appropriate to speak with board candidate before the election

We have two seats on our 5 person board up election in January. One of the current board members has submitted his intent to run. The other board member is being coy about whether she will turn it in by the Monday deadline. We had one homeowner turn in her candidate form but she did not turn in the information sheet so all we know is her name and address. She has been in the community less than a year, first as a renter and then a homeowner. She has never been to a board meeting. No one on the board has met her. The office staff had a brief conversation with her and they say she's nice. That's all we know.

If our current board member decides not to run, then the new person automatically gets the seat and we don't have an election. I have concerns that, because she has never been to a board meeting or even spoken to a current board member, she might not have an understanding of the time commitment that it takes to be on the board or even if she can make the monthly board meetings.

If we have three candidates we will have a "meet the candidates" night. If not, we might not meet her until after she gets elected.

Is it appropriate for me to give her a call now and have a friendly talk to see if she understands the requirements? Not trying to discourage her, but just to make sure she gets what it means to be on our board?

yes getting to know people in your hood is always a good move.

The issue is "what being a Board member means in your HOA" is, in this context, being defined by the current Board members. The prospective Board member, who is new to the community, may have different ideas about what it means to be a Board member. And perhaps the outsider's view is not wrong.

I don't agree that there is only one way to run an HOA and that way is the way that the old HOA board has run things. Diversity, multiple perspectives, and differences of opinions are all positives in an HOA Board.

Most people don't completely understand what it means to be a HOA board member - like everything else in life, you learn a lot of this stuff by doing. You say she hasn't been to a board meeting, but how do you know she hasn't spoken to other people about the board, community problems, etc.? Or that she hasn't Googled the hell out of the subject and has a good idea of what to expect?

You're having a meet the candidates night, so if she attends, I'm sure people will ask her questions, and how she responds may factor into whether anyone votes for her. Or she'll think the steak is a lot bigger than she thought and bow out. But if she is elected, that's where you can do your new board member orientation (which you should be doing anyway). Give her time to get acquainted with all of you and the issues, and hopefully, she'll figure out how to pace herself in becoming a good board member - you could help by becoming a mentor of sorts.

As we allow nominations from the floor, we do not know who or how many will be running until right before voting begins thus we do little to no preliminary work. Only once in 7 years have we had more people run for the BOD then we had open spots. Usually we have to go begging for BOD Members.