electing board members

What are the VA state's laws regarding HOA board of directors elections. I need to find out what is legal, who can vote and who can not. Who are considered to be homeowners, who can give proxy to whom.

NurdanL,

I have learned over the past couple of months, that your CC&Rs should state as too the voting procedure. It would help to know if proxies are valid in your state or not. Some states proxies can be use and some states they can not.
Check your CC&Rs. It will tell you a lot on electing members to serve on the board
Use the search box as well. There has been some great information in previous postes on this particular topic.

Some posts I have written help tremendously
If you get time read then it may help you out too.
“Should your vote count” and “How long is a proxy good for”.

I hope these help you some.
Best of luck to you
Chuck W.

Here is a better view of our issue---how frustrating. I am a little confused about our voting rights and legalities of the votes in a VA homeowners association. I am the president of my HOA and have some troubling concerns about voting rights. We have bylaws/CCR but yet not cleared on every aspect. I checked the POA and it doesn't answer my particular question either. Well, the question/issue is that we have a board member that is not a homeowner. This person lives with her mother and her mother's name is on the deed (I checked with the county public records). Our files also list the mother as the homeowner. This past election, her name was put on the ballot. She also brought in 3 proxies that included 1 from her mother and 2 from her neighbors. Our CCR and bylaws clearly say that you do not have to be a homeowner to be elected as a board member. But it's not clear on who can have proxy and who can give it to whom. My question is, can any homeowner give her (non-owner) a proxy to vote either for herself or for the other nominees when she's not a homeowner or not even elected as a BOD yet? Also, how do you challenge the legitimacy of the voting? There is a clear indication that the voting/ballots don't seem to be legitimate. The reason I say that because, there are 7 ballots with the same handwriting which voted for this person. How do you resolve this? Do we need a legal representation in this? The other board members feel very uncomfortable that there may have been illegal voting took place for the last election and we need to do something.

The other thing is that one of the neighbors sent in her proxy to the management company naming me to be her proxy. However, I never received that proxy on the eve of the elections until I requested all copies sent to me from the management co. a few months ago. In short, this homeowner never practiced her right to vote at the last election. One other thing is that we never verify at the election who's the homeowner and who's not. Shouldn't we do that?

Nurdan, since you stated non owners are allowed to be on your Board the person living with her mother may be on the Board. As far as who may be assinged a proxy, if your By-laws and proxy are silent on this I would say any person over 18.

Since the meeting has been held and winners determined then I believe it is too late to challenge the election. Perhaps you can learn from this experience and improve on your voting procedures.