Effective Attack Ads for HOA Election?

It hasn't happened in my community. We don't have a Facebook page and while one of our previous board presidents (now deceased) set up a Next Door account for our community, very few people joined (I did), but that account went by the wayside after he died. Since I see few people at our annual meeting and hardly no one shows up for the regular board meetings anyway, I don't think a smear campaign would work because one would have to ask how active THEY are in the association or what specific things they'd do differently (some don't have a clue as to what's already happening. Our owner lists don't include emails, so the only way you'd get an online smear campaign to work would be to collect all of them (good luck with that, especially since you'd have to get around all the anti-spam software out there).

You could go with old fashioned postcards or flyers, but printing and postage costs money and someone has to walk around to stick everything in the doors or near the mailboxes (stuff without postage isn't supposed to be in them). That's too much work for a lot of people, and even talking up people by walking through the neighborhood doesn't always work.

That said, if I received various propaganda on board elections saying Person X isn't worth a bucket of spit (or that other stuff) and shouldn't serve on the board, I'd start with asking who sent this, or do you live here (because we have a lot of off-site owners) and where did you get this information. Especially if they come door to door - if you can't tell me the last time you attended a board meeting, read board meeting minutes or the annual budget while barking about assessments being "too high", I'm inclined to ignore you. The stuff that turns candidates radioactive could range from mostly personal attacks, complaining about one or two issues and nothing else, or making promises that make no sense at all is a start. The more you know about association issues, the easier it is to spot this crap. The people who take it as gospel, no matter what you say? They can think whatever they like (they'll do it anyway), but at the end of the day, I have better things to do. Nothing's more irritating to people when they see you unbothered by their nonsense - and others are ignoring them anyway.

I was going to post the following link in another "interesting article on..." but it may be useful for this discussion. Someone's always watching you and while you can't control what or why they think the way they do, you can be more mindful of what you do and not be afraid of explaining yourself to people.
https://www.thoughtleadersllc.com/2026/05/youre-always-being-watched-a-simple-truth-many-people-miss/

It's a crazy hard problem. I am fighting incumbents who for a year seemed indifferent to state laws about open board meetings, audits and more. They think that not holding meetings, not posting anything in the portals, and having the management company retaliate on anyone asking questions is the right way to go.

Since most members see no activity from the board, they are apathetic. I guess they assume if the board remains out of sight that everything is OK and just don't want to get involved.

I sent a postcard with positive campaign message to vote for me on it. My wife and daughters approved it as positive. It had a link to a positive campaign agenda for myself and another positive person running. Only about 5 people every clicked on it and only 2 people ever called me.

But we have documented the board increasing our dues and making decisions without open meetings. We documented them not doing their audits and I have started posting on social media stories about OTHER hoa's that were caught doing seriously bad things, and commenting that "if they had open meetings and done their audits, this disaster could have been prevented"

This new activity got my board to have their first open meeting that we know of. And people we haven't met yet joined and asked the board for the audits. And my group of people who will talk to me about HOA issues continues to grow.

I would like the current board members to resign, I would like other members to demand they at least follow the basic laws, stop retaliating and provide a basic level of engagement. If they did that I would leave the board alone. I'd really rather not serve on the board.

Mark, thanks! Mass-mailing / postcards is an interesting approach. (Probably) cost-effective, too. I mean, if you consider the cost of (for instance) the postcards versus getting hit with a large special assessment because the Board is clueless - I’d imagine it’s an overall cost savings.

(I know it was not greeted warmly, but this is why I was asking about buying votes in an HOA election (ie, “vote for me; if I win, I’ll give you $10!”). This would probably cost on the order of $1500 (if I win; $0 if I lose), which might be cheaper than whatever financial abuse the Board might throw at me. In the grand scheme of Home Improvements and Maintenance, this kind of money is chicken feed).

Bill