update election code without attorney

Yes, it will. Members don't need to comment. It's a change required by law.

The XX Board of Directors will pass a resolution adopting Article 2, Elections and Meetings section 1363.03, Election and Voting Procedures, to be included in the Rules and Regulations of XX Homeowners Association. Members have 30 days to comment.
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Election procedures to be included in the Rules and Regulations? Hmm, that is interesting.
Are the election procedures included in the By-laws?

You will go nuts trying to keep up with the changes that would require amending your documents. for example, you would not state the specific price of a stamp in your bylaws, because it has changed often. You only need to say that the HOA will use the most current stamp as required under the law. Susan
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Susan,
I totally agree, you may need just a reference in the By-laws, although some things must be included otherwise not enforceable (i.e. late fees, interest charges etc.).

But I am just surprised that the voting process would be included in the Rules and Regulations? But again, may be there are different sets of ‘Rules’ I am not familiar with?

Our Rules are just enforcing Covenants, i.e. the use of property: No bicycles on lawns, speed limit, no clothesline on common areas, no alligators in the swimming pool, .. We give these Rules to tenants.

Mary,
Our legislators seem to spend way too much time on HOA laws. There are currently 12 pending bills. The election rules were changed in 2005. It doesn't require a change to the governing documents although we opted for a formal amendment to our bylaws. The law gives us great flexibility in how to incorporate the continual changes. The new election rules can be adopted in a policy by the board or simply a required rule change. They don't expect us to amend our documents every time the law changes. The only people who would benefit from that are the HOA attorneys collecting all those fees.

Mary,
This is part of what Davis-Stirling says:

§1363.03. Election Rules; Secret Ballots;
Inspectors of Election; Balloting
(a) As association shall adopt rules, in accordance
with the procedures prescribed by Article 4 (commencing
with Section 1357.100) of Chapter 2, that do all of the
following:

I agree that we should just follow the law. We opted for an amendment since we were making several other amendments to our bylaws such as changing the number of directors etc. When I read the above section, it does say we shall adopt a rule. This state is bizarre. The number of documents we have to send to homeowners grows by the year. I send comments to the CLRC (California Law Revision Commission) whenever they address HOA issues (they call us CIDs). I want them to simplify the law for small associations. They agree, but as of yet haven't done anything. We are volunteers and have a limited amount of time. They also do recognize we do not have the resources to hire attorneys, management companies, a CPA (it's good I am one) because we do not have the same economies of scale in small associations.

Thanks Kirk. We are smart enough to include such language in our documents. I have friends that are attorneys. We are a small association (<10) self managed, but very competent. I don't live in an area in CA that has been devastated by the current housing implosion.

Mary,
We are less than 10, a prime number (>5, <10). We also have the problem neighbor who read their documents which say there are only 3 directors, we had 4 at the time. I think he thought I was the 4th even though he had voted for 4 for the prior 3 years. We added a 4th board member when we became self managed. Our VP was the 4th BOD. The neighbor doesn't like the fact that there are 2 board members from my household. Our documents allow this as does our state law. To make a long story short, the neighbor didn't like the opinion of the board that he couldn't put an addition on to his house. Our CC&Rs are very specific and allow no exterior modifications. In addition, our city put language in our CC&Rs that says we are fully built out and they are not going to allow anyone to add square footage to their home.

Thank you Nancy! I'll leave out the "members have 30 days to comment." I don't think those from other states have any idea of how crazy the condo laws are in California. Even when seeking advice from the Executive Council of Homeowners they always add "but have an attorney check it." Surely there must be some boilerplate language that has already been prepared by attorneys. Why aren't these available to associations?

I would love to have some kind of forum that is exclusively for self-managed, small associations in California. Do you know of any? Perhaps if we had one we'd have more power with legislation for the small associations.
Thanks to everyone who helped with advice - it's all greatly appreciated. MW

MW
I wouldn't suggest you use boilerplate language. You can google CA homeowner associations and find many associations that post their documents online. They may or may not be appropriate for your association. ECHO is an informative site as well as davis-stirling, berding-weil, californiacondoguru, and clrc.ca.gov. The CLRC had been addressing changes in the law for smaller associations. It has presently been tabled. You can subscribe to their site for free and keep informed of smaller HOA issues. I know condo law is more restrictive in terms of what the HOA has to maintain. We are not condos.