covenant amendment

sorry, a Florida HOA government by FS 720

You can't assume not voting equals no. You should read your documents yo see what percentage of homeowners have to vote yes for the amendment to pass. So if you need 75%, and 60% said yes, 15% said no and the rest didn't vote at all, the amendment doesn't pass.

Your only workaround is to get the remaining 25% to vote one way or the other, and not say "if you don't vote, we'll assume you agree." That's a lazy approach and it's possible there was another reason the owner didn't vote.

You posted that FS 720 applies. If the Declaration is silent about amendments, then to pass an amendment to the Declaration, FS 720 requires a supermajority of 2/3rds of all the voting interests.

If you want to "get the vote out," three options are typical: Either (1) pound the pavement and gather proxies; or (2) vote electronically (if allowed by the covenants and statutes; or (3) permit absentee ballots; advertise massively and extend the deadline for voting as needed until such time as enough votes are obtained for ____.

If you're looking for more votes of approval, JimA, here's what my HOA did to get approval by a super majority (67%) of voters for a total rewrite of our CC&Rs in 2022. The ballot had places for both yes & no votes. this is best since, in CA, the assn. may not ask voters to vote a certain way using assn. resources. The assn may do all it can to get out the vote.

1. a couple of Town Halls to gin up interest, one attended by our HOA lawyer.

2. CA requires mail-in/absentee voting options for all voters. Attendence in person or by proxy at an actual Members Meeting is not required. So the secret ballots went out.

3. Our 6 board members plus one other (recent retiree from the Board, me)divvied up all Owners into 7 groups that were each contacted in various ways depending on their "precinct captain's" preference/style: in person; by email, by phone; flyers under condo doors; combo of all. We have 25% absentee owners and another 13% or so who only live here part time. The absentee owners were the most difficult to encourage to vote.

4. Monthly reminders in the newsletter, frequent reminders via e-blasts by our PM to vote. A "thermometer" in the elevators showing the number of ballots turned in was updated every week.

5. The first deadline was extended and the Board began offering weekly drawings for $100. This did help.

After 5 months, the Members Meeting did occur an our inspectors of election tabulated the ballots. We had 63% approval, but needed 67%. In CA Boards via their attorney may submit all of the materials to get out the vote and if more than 50% had voted to approve, the court usually permits approval of the restated CC&Rs. We were awarded that outcome.

For just an amendment of an Article or section, you might have to work just as hard especially if the clause is controversial. In the latter case I'd suggest a Town Hall with your HOA attorney explaining why the amendment matters and how it benefits your assn.