proxies for board election

If your bylaws do not have the restrictions on voting that you listed above, then the MC with the board's support is breaking the law.

However I doubt that you will be able to convince them of this. Chances are you would have to hire an attorney to communicate the illegalities here and be persuasive.

What do your Bylaws state about voting, i.e, do they say something like "all votes submitted in person or by proxy at the annual meeting shall be counted?

Or is there wording similar to our Bylaws? "Ballots must be received by the Inspectors [vote counters] by a fixed deadline which may be one or more days before the votes are counted."

Do your Bylaws state WHO is permitted to submit ballots

Don't your Bylaws say anything about ballots being counted in a place where Owners can observe the tabulations?

Now here's one to which maybe the wise veteran JohnC of SC might be able to contribute.

So to sum it up, the management company is saying that all proxies had to be in two days early; that you couldn't bring a proxy to the election meeting on Thursday; and that I couldn't submit a proxy handed to me from my sister and my neighbors appointing me as their proxy that I had to give it to somebody else to submit. And they're saying they couldn't give me a copy of that SC ruling.
There are 2 people running for 1 position.
The current board does not want to be broken up, the 5 have been in for 6 years. And the management company seems to be backing them up.

I say your MC is wrong in calling for proxies to be submitted prior to the actual meeting. I say one can walk into to meeting and register themselves any proxies they are holding at that time.

Hello again, this just got worse. Another neighbor received 2 two proxies last night and an e-mail from the mgmt co today. They won't be counted.
Our election meeting is tomorrow night at the clubhouse, however, the mgmt company just sent a letter out which said, we won't be accepting any more of the proxies they had to be in by Tuesday; that a lot of work goes on behind the scenes. They have to look at the proxy, check it off against the list of h/o and addresses; then they make a copy of it, and tally it.. that they can't do that on the election night.
So basically they're holding the election in their office two days before our annual election meeting and anyone that shows up at the election to vote in person or by proxy won't be counted. This is appalling. We've had 15 elections with five different management companies. We've never had a problem.
What are they talking about? We only get about 60 votes out of 231 homes. That's what they do at the meeting. Two h/o tally the votes, check off the homeowners list and count them. There's only two people running.
So basically, the election was yesterday, behind the closed doors at mgmt office and not our clubhouse- Any advice.

Yes. It is not a matter of who wins. It's a matter of a fair community election process. I doubt that our contract with our management company includes them counting our board election proxies.

Lynne, are you accusing them of being dishonest? You could always request they bring any proxies they received and have someone on your BOD observe the final count done at the meeting.

Today was the election. The meeting was called to order. We didn't have 51% quorum so they adjourned for 5 minutes and reconvened, at which point we would need 59 votes instead of 118. They didn't allow two people who had proxies to submit them. That was five votes that they did not allow to be counted because they wanted the proxies in two days ago. So they give the proxies back if you show up, which I showed up, they gave me a ballot and I filled it out. They put on the bottom of my ballot a #3X, I had submitted three proxies. The man running for the board position against the incumbent had submitted 30 proxies. He had 6X at the bottom of his ballot. I asked why they didn't say 30. And they said they weren't counting the 30 proxies that he submitted two days ago.
They weren't counting any votes unless the H/O themselves who filled out the proxy submitted the proxy at least two days ago. Not today. Not yesterday. A fight broke out. Everyone started yelling that if somebody gave in a proxy, it should have been counted. I left during the fight so, I found out, they disqualified my vote and the three proxies that I brought in.
The Mgmt company only had 29 votes for the incumbent. She won without having the 1/2 quorum... although they didn't count any of those voided proxies, they were going count them towards the 1/2 quorum. Now, JohnC46, you asked me, did I think they were going to be dishonest. What do you think. The fighting started because they said that we did not understand what the word proxy meant, and that the proxy had to be signed by the homeowner, submitted by them by SC law 2 days early. I said, there's no law in South Carolina. That says that a proxy is filled out by somebody signed and given to somebody else to bring in.
I am exhausted.