Proof of Ownership

Started by ReneeD • 6 replies • 1635 views

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ReneeD (Illinois)
Posts: 201

Posted:

Recently held election of new officers.

After reviewing copies of proxies from attorney, I noticed that a few of the proxies were not signed by 'owner of record' which our governing documents require. It also mentions that if anyone other than owner of record signs, that a letter must be submitted and on file with PM. IMO, I would think this should be done prior to an election. Also, I emailed and questioned BOD President and copied lawyer that these were invalid votes.

My question: Can either BOD President or lawyer reverse this 'after the fact' by contacting the owners and having them either verbally "okay" these votes and/or have them sign a form stating that this other person who voted represented the owner's best interests?

Has anyone run into this problem? Thanks. -Renee

MicheleD (Kentucky)
Posts: 4,491

Posted:

Are there enough of these questionable votes to change the outcome of the election?

TracieS (Colorado)
Posts: 460

Posted:

What are you hoping to accomplish?

Asking such a carefully phrased question leads me to believe there is a LOT more to this story.

Do you hope to force the BOD to do another election since this one is bad? Do you hope that the lawyer cannot force the BOD to do another election, since this one kind of worked?

You had to request copies of voting proxies from a lawyer?

ReneeD (Illinois)
Posts: 201

Posted:

We received 46 proxies and 12 ballots were turned in on election night. IMO, 3 proxies are invalid; two were not signed by owner of record and the other wasn't even signed. Basically, it comes down to a 1 vote difference between candidates and, new BOD members will be announced at tonight's meeting. I ask because the other day one of the owners approached me and said they received a call from the PM asking if the owner was aware that his renter(a family relative) completed his proxy and owner gave verbal approval to vote for him. Yet, our governing docs say a written document must be on file with PM. I think they are now only covering this oversight for this year's election and prior elections because I know for a fact neither of these unit's owners have voted in the past 5 plus years and now all of a sudden they do!

The point I want to make with our BOD and PM is to prove how they maintain inaccurate file and are not consistent in their procedures. We'll see...

SusanW1 (Michigan)
Posts: 5,202

Posted:

If you feel that the election was not "valid" be sure to call out a Point of Order BEFORE the results are announced.

The job of the board election committee is to validate all of the votes, including proxies. You need to ask them how this was done.

PS - how do you know that there was a 1 vote difference in the results? The president has not announced the election outcomes, so how do you know the numbers?

ReneeD (Illinois)
Posts: 201

Posted:

Tonight is a "regular" BOD meeting; the agenda created by the PM always has the Homeowner Forum as the last order of business. They have purposely done this for quite some years but I do recall the Homeowner Forum coming before the Treasurer's Report and, if anyone chose to stay, they could.

Anyway, I'm pretty certain they will call the meeting to order and go right into their order of business without giving anyone a chance to speak up. So I know I will not have a chance to call out a Point of Order before the results are announced---knowing them, they'll probably tell me to leave.

As far as validating votes, we have no election committee. On night of meeting, attorney asks for volunteers to tally votes.

I know about the 1 vote difference because I received copies of proxies/ballots a couple days after the election meeting and, after going through all of them found the discrepancies. I even pointed out to BOD Prez that our PM's CAM should've been able to pull those out or at the very least inform tellers how to correctly tally votes.

GlenL (Ohio)
Posts: 5,491

Posted:

Renee, I would turn your findings over to the person who lost and let them fight the battle.

Studies show that 5 out of 4 people have problems with fractions

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