A continuation of Annual Meeting

I am from Phoenix AZ.
We had our annual meeting to elect new Board members. For the 3rd year we have not met our quorum to have a meeting. There are 569 homes at 10% we needed 57 ballots only got 33. There were 12 members present 4 Board members missing which included the President and Secretary. The 4 Board members did not put their names on the ballot and have stayed on due to the fact we cannot get a quorum.
Help!!! The 12 members signed a petion at the meeting to have a continuation or 2nd meeting so that the quorum could be cut in half we would only need 29 ballots. The property manager said it was up to the Board if we could have a second meeting. They have not responded and will probably wait till the next regular meeting and more than likely will vote no.
Our bylaws state
ARTICLE III MEETING OF MEMBERS section 2 Special Meetings
Special meetings of the members may be called at any time by the president or by the Board of Directors, or upon written request of the members who are entitled to vote one-fourth(1/4) of all of the votes of the Class A membership.
1. We have 4 new homeowners that were on the ballot for the Board of Directors.
2. According to our bylaws do we need 143 signatures for the petition and would the homeowners need to be in good standing? We have about 284 homes that are delinquent and over 120 homes that are rentals.
3. If we get the second meeting do the 33 ballots get carried over to the 2nd meeting or do new ballots go out again?
Thank you for any help on this. The propery manager has very little input.
FG

PS - our HOA bylaws say that business can be conducted at the annual meeting, including election of officers, even if a quorum is not present. Only amendment changes (vote on membership/water rates) would require a quorum.

Sally,

Are you aware of the rather new state law which requires mail-in ballots for the annual meeting election and those mail-in ballots count toward the quorum? Did your BOD follow the procedure outlined in ARS 33-1250 (condos) or 33-1812 (planned communities)? If not, then they have violated state law; therefore if a special meeting is held they sure better follow the statute! Your PM should know about this statute!

Do your bylaws speak to a postponement of the annual meeting if a quorum is not reached. If not then a special meeting should be called. Members entitled to vote means members in good standing. Taking away the members delinquent there is still a balance of 285 and you would need 143 to petition the board for a special meeting. The owners of the rentals should be notified of the meeting so they have the opportunity to vote. If they were not notified then that was a gross injustice! If a special meeting does take place for the purpose of holding an election, the ballots cast in the first annual meeting would not count because that would be a direct violation of the above cited statutes.

Robert,

I agree the law is not written very well. As usual it's sometimes very difficult to get the legislators to change the wording. :-( The big problem is the portion that says "and may provide for voting by some other form of delivery". I really don't understand what that means -- what other form of delivery is there? With regard to the last portion that says "if absentee ballots are used", IMO that means if "another form of delivery is (may be) used" the following requirements do not apply. Bottom line, you are required to use absentee ballots or this mysterious other form of delivery. Since no one knows what that is, I feel pretty safe in saying absentee ballots are the real requirement.

Susan, I would disagree with your definition of delivery. Delivery (to me) means how the specific ballot gets into the possession of the homeowner, not what content it contains. So "other" could be fax, snail mail, email, hand delivered, pony express (this is the west), telegram... No matter how it gets there, the same ballot must be used and in the same form as created by the deliverer.