Thursday, December 24, 2009

Vote Count At Owner’s Meeting

A vote for Board of directors was held at the annual Owner’s meeting in November, after the votes were tallied the winner was announced but the vote count was not given. This is in violation of Conduct of Meetings 1 (c) (4)

(4) The individual(s) counting the ballots shall report the results of the vote to the Chair by indicating how many votes were cast for each individual or how many votes were cast in favor and against any issue.


This is just one of a few problems I noticed in our voting process. The most glaring is that we do not include the questionnaire that the candidates fill out in the packet sent to homeowners a few weeks before the meeting. Not including this document increases the number of homeowners that vote “present” for quorum purposes without voting for a specific candidate. Now it is important that a voter have the right to not vote for a specific issue if he or she is not comfortable with their knowledge of that issue or candidate. The solution to this problem is to simply make the deadline for entering the board of directors race early enough to have these questionnaires included in the package that contains the financials. Write in votes would still be allowed and candidates would be allowed to give a small speech and answer questions from the floor but someone who is voting and not present at the meeting should have some idea of who they are voting for.

All these procedures should be discussed and included in a written document before the owner’s meeting takes place. Items that should be discussed include; who will count the vote, how the vote will be collected, how homeownership is verified, etc.

One item that needs to be discussed is how the votes are announced. The bylaws only state that they be announced. What should be discussed is if the breakdown of what votes for each candidate came from proxy or attending members should be announced. In addition vote counters should be instructed to not discuss the vote outcome.

Admittedly I have been remiss in attending these homeowner’s meetings in the past. I was however somewhat shocked at the unprofessionalism and chaos during the process. Todd Creek Farms has been in existence for over a decade now and the whole event seemed as if it were the first election ever held. I think part of this problem is there is no written procedure. There is a constant influx of new directors so the whole process is somewhat new each time, this is unacceptable. A procedure needs to be formalized and put into effect, the presiding president should follow it to the letter every year, and changes to the process should be made and documented at least one month in advance of the vote.

One last minor point, after the vote was taken, Jim announced the winner, he is not supposed to make that announcement, one of the homeowners should make that announcement.

From Conduct of Meetings
(3) Written ballots shall be counted by a neutral third party (which excludes the Association’s manager and legal counsel) or by an Owner(s), who is not a candidate, selected randomly from a pool of two or more Owners.


This says who should count the votes, specifically excluding the property manager, then from the quote above “The individual(s) counting the ballots shall report the results of the vote to the Chair” since the manager can’t count the votes, this leaves the homeowners to make the announcement, or at least inform the Chair, and the Chair make the announcement.

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