Are Election Ballots Records that the Board of Directors Must yield?

Do the Bylaws specify what type of records homeowners have access to? The word "all" is tricky because there ARE some records you probably won't be entitled to. For example, if you wanted to see Mr. Morgan's account because you think he's delinquent, you wouldn't be entitled to it due to privacy laws. Keep reading your bylaws to see what's there.

Your state may also have some legislation that addresses it - start with reading this to get an overview: https://www.steadily.com/blog/georgia-hoa-laws-regulations After that, you should be able to go to your state legislature's website to find current Georgia law. Note one set of laws deals with HOAs and another with condos, so be sure you're looking at the right one, depending on what you live in. From what I've seen in a quick Google search, there doesn't seem to be anything that says you have the right to look at the ballots themselves, although there appears to be rules regarding use of proxies, electronic voting and suspending voting rights.

Having said all that, you said the management company didn't respond when you asked who the new directors are - that doesn't necessarily mean something shady is going on. Your question should have been directed to the board (at least whoever was in charge at the time the election was held). You don't say when this election was held - if it was a month ago, I see no reason why the results haven't been announced because it shouldn't take that long to make sure the votes were cast by eligible homeowners, they were signed and dated in ink, they were turned in by the deadline, etc. Go to your next board meeting and start asking questions. Bring your neighbors with you so they can hear the response for themselves and then all of you can decide what should happen next if the board continues to balk. This may mean passing the hat to get your own attorney to review your documents vs. Georgia law.

A few questions:

(1) Who did this attorney represent – the association, individual board members or the homeowners who spearheaded the recall (I assume you were one of them?) Did he or she run the meeting?
If so, once the old board was voted out, I would think there should have been a call for nominations from the floor for new board members. Whoever stepped up (assuming the six), it would have been easier to vote for them individually as opposed to someone saying “I move that we elect these six by acclamation”?

(2) So how were these people elected? Was there a motion to elect them by acclamation, followed by a second, and then the vote?

(3) How was the vote done (e.g. a show of hands?)

(4) Did anyone keep track of who did what, how many people were their and how many raised their hands in support of the motion? If it was done by ballot, those should have been counted in front of everyone, preferably by people who didn’t have any relationship with the board AND the recall group to keep things fair

(5) How many ballots were disqualified and why? Depending on what your documents say, there could have been an issue with some people not being in good standing (delinquent in assessments), the ballots missed the deadline, they weren’t signed, all the co-owners of a unit turned in ballots (if it’s one vote per unit, co-owners need to decide for themselves who and how the vote will be cast). And so on.

You said you couldn’t get an answer from the group that spearheaded the recall – that’s interesting. It sounds like they walked away from all this – why even put the community through all this in the first place? I don’t know how many people from this group that you talked to, but it may be THEY didn’t follow the documents in calling for the recall, nor did they have a plan for follow up if they were successful. Sometimes, you have to be careful what you wish for because you might get it. And when you decide a recall is necessary, it’s vital that you plan things carefully so stuff like this doesn’t happen.

So now we have last month’s annual meeting and no announcement on the outcome? Having mail in ballots isn’t necessarily a bad idea, but those ballots should be counted at a live meeting in front of everyone. The people who attend but didn’t turn in ballots should be allowed to vote at that time and you can add those numbers to the total. Just what do your documents say regarding elections – it doesn’t look like anyone’s paying attention. Except perhaps the incumbents who were up for election – they know the management company works at the board’s direction, so it would be easy to say “no, we’re not going to show the ballots, redacted or otherwise” to anyone.

I realize you’re unhappy with the current state of affairs and you have a right to be, but let’s stop with the name calling. You may be right these six are “creepy, hateful” board members, but that’s not going to get this fixed. You need to calm yourself, THINK through your options and go from there. If you don’t think you’re able to do that (or don’t want to), get together with like-minded neighbors and let someone with more control over their emotions spearhead what the group does. And get an attorney – you’ll probably need one to compel another recall and this time, consider what should be done to make the thing stand. Good luck to you.

Sorry if I missed this: Are ballots signed by each owner or the ballot has woners' names on them? Or are they secret ballots?

Are ballots secretly cast, Walter? Or do owners sign them?