HOA voting quorum
I asked this question before but I did not receive a reply.
Is there a minimum percentage required for elections to be valid? Is it a 10%,20% etc. quorum required? I can not find if anywhere in HOA rules nor CCRs etc.
Question 2: The HOA mgt company is ignoring my letters and refuse to respond accordingly. What are my options as to where I can file a complaint with the State?
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John,
As I responded earlier there is no state law relative to the percentage of the population of a community required to elect a board. It all depends on the quorum requirements for your community for meetings of the members. Once a quorum is achieved the elections is based on the candidates reveiving the most votes either from in-person voting or absentee voting. Absentee ballots count toward satisfying quorum for the meeting. Those will be established in the bylaws and sometimes in the CC&R’s. There is a requirement in law for every association to hold a meeting of the members annually. I say that because calling a meeting and holding a meeting are two very different issues. Many communities call a meeting, fail to get a quorum and then do not hold elections that year. That totally and completely wrong and violates the law. To be held a meeting must satisfy quorum so if a quorum is not achieved the association is required by law to reconvene the meeting as many times as necessary until a quorum is achieved or they can reduce the quorum requirements so as to hold the meeting and the election of board members. Until a meeting is held the association is still required to hold such a meeting annually.
Some communities have quorum requirement that range from 10% to 70% of the population of the community. Obviously those communities with large quorum requirement have a very difficult time holding a meeting. In my opinion quorum requirement over 30% of the community are unreasonable and focused on preventing the members of the association from voting and conducting their business. Most board have the power to change quorum requirement in the bylaws by a simple motion and vote.
Dennis
I would like to tell you about our annual meeting that was supposed to take place tonight.
To meet the quorum requirements our community requires 10% of eligible home owners.
This meeting was done virtually and from the management office which is located in Gilbert and our community is in East Mesa. There were three board members at the management office and two virtually.
The president called the meeting to order and the management company stated that quorum of eligible home owners voters was 132 and that votes came in at 113 and quorum wasn’t met.
At this point it was announced that since quorum wasn’t met, that we couldn’t hold the annual meeting. For a brief moment they said voting was still open and they would leave it open and gave an e-mail address to e-mail in votes. However that was for two minutes and in a rushed attempt the board members in the office adjourned the meeting and didn’t announce a new meeting date. All that was said by the management people is that the board remained the same.
They then went into the regular monthly meeting. During that meeting a question regarding an existing board member came up about them moving and the answer was they stayed on the board until their home sold and they moved out the community. That’s fine but later another person asked for a reading of the vote totals from the annual meeting, the management folks said 113, the person clarified that they wanted the vote totals by candidate to be read and they were told no, since quorum wasn’t met they won’t do it and that if quorum was met they would announce the top three people who received votes.
A couple of other items I wanted to add which may be of importance. There was a short period of time to vote and some people didn’t get ballots until this past Friday with Monday being the meeting. The other thing is this company has an online home owners portal.
In the set up for the election, the option to vote for quorum only wasn’t present, the option to vote to rollover the surplus wasn’t there and they stated that you could vote until 1159PM on Sunday, however when trying to vote on Sunday they had already taken down the option to vote. I can see why they rushed through this meeting.
Can you advise if this was all within the rules based on your reply to johnp, if it wasn’t within the rules can you tell me which parts and what can be done if anything.
Thank You
RS,
Once again, a totally incompetent community manager that does not have the basic skill or ability to read negatively impacting an election in one of these communities. Arizona law requires that associations must provide for an opportunity to vote in-person and by absentee ballot. This is not an “or” you must allow both, and both apply to satisfying the quorum requirements for the meeting. In your case the absentee ballots alone did not satisfy the quorum requirement, but the manager did not even consider those people in person on the zoom meeting relative to quorum requirements. The law also requires that a meeting of the members be held annually, and in this case because they claimed that the quorum was not achieved the meeting was never held and had to be re-convened at a later date to actually “hold” the meeting and the election when quorum can be satisfied. This is not rocket science and simple common sense. Elections must be “held” annually. The law also requires that ballots be provided to homeowners at leas 10 days prior to the meeting once again this community manager failed to satisfy the basic premise of the law. Board do not get to extend their terms of office because they simply want to they must be elected by the members and you have an absolute right to know and review the results of that election. Your question on vote count for each candidate was totally appropriate and the association must provide that answer to anyone asking it. Your board hired this community manager and they need to be held accountable for the total incompetence of this individual.
This election and annual meeting was a total sham and illegitimate. Inform your board that they can either reconvene the meeting using the votes already cast and allow anyone that had not previously voted to submit a vote and to count quorum based on both absentee ballots and person in attendance at the meeting or you will sue the association and the board individually for grossly violating the law.
Dennis
Dennis
Dennis,
Thanks for the reply. A member of the community reached out to the management company regarding the vote totals and was sent this reply:
We have never released the actual vote totals before, just who was elected. We always have homeowners and a board member (not running for the board) confirm the votes and if a homeowner ever wishes they could look at the votes it is community knowledge. Since we have never announced vote totals prior I really don’t want to break previous practices.
There will not be another election held. Some communities have sliding quorum requirements, so if you don’t meet quorum at the first meeting it lowers for the next meeting. Parkwood Ranch does not have that and there is no requirement to make quorum for the annual meeting.
Looking at the votes online it did not seem there was a rush of last second votes. In my opinion or email blast reminding people to vote via email to the entire community more than likely got more votes than a couple more hours of the portal voting being up.
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Many of us are perplexed because of these statements that there isn’t a requirement to meet quorum and the fact that the online voting was shut down on Saturday and no one was able to vote on Sunday. So yes, there wouldn’t be a last minute rush to vote because people couldn’t through the portal.
I would like to know so it can be shared with others, how do we go about getting the vote totals per candidate? I would assume we go to their office to see them, but can we just show up or do we need to advise them we want to see them or is there some official notification process.
Thanks for what you do here, you are a great asset to everyone involved with an HOA.
RS
Your community manager is wrong. There is a requirement ARS 33-1804 that a meeting of the members be “held” annually your meeting was not held as they claimed that a quorum was not achieved. If a quorum was not achieved the meeting did not happen and was never held. Additionally, like I mentioned earlier ARS-33-1812 requires that the association allow votes to be submitted in person “and” by absentee ballots, both can be used to satisfy the quorum, they only counted the absentee ballots they never asked or counted if anyone was at the meeting that had not yet voted and wished to vote at the meeting. Whatever the community manager never provided before is totally irrelevant they are required by to provide any member access to view the records of the vote including the vote count and actual ballots submitted, because some community manager did not do his/her job before does not justify continuing to do it incorrectly now. Quite frankly not providing the vote count is just plain stupid. One last point it appears that your association used an on-line voting system that is not currently authorized for you by the planned communities act. There is a provision in non-profit corporation statutes that allow an on-line voting system if it satisfies certain criteria, there is no such authorization in the planned community act and in fact ARS-33-1812 specifically excludes the use of the section within non-profit corporation law that provides for use of an on-line system. While I personally have no objection to the use of a legitimate on-line voting system that actually satisfies the criteria specified, it is currently not allowed by law for these communities. On-line systems created for the individual use of community managers by their own firms should never be trusted for votes in these communities without certified independent validation that it satisfies the criteria required by law and there is no way that anyone from the community managers firm could manipulate the voting data. I would never under any condition trust an on-line voting system run and operated by any community manager. Their jobs could depend on the outcome of the vote and to put the control of that vote in their hands in my opinion is totally foolhardy by any community. In my opinion you have a very strong cause of action to challenge the actions of the association and the community manager relative to the handling of this election in violation of Arizona law in court either through the ADRE dispute resolution process or civil court.
Dennis
As for the viewing of the voting records you simply have to write to the community manager and request to view all records of the election including all actual ballots submitted and the number of total ballots received and counted. While you are at it include aa request for the proof that the on-line voting system used by the community manager satisfied all the requirements of law for that system and that no person involved with the handing of that software had any ability to alter or add and votes not submitted by legitimate association members. The only member of the association is the owner of record for the property their system must validate that the person voting was that person only and not someone else from his/her household. They also have to validate that every vote case was confirmed to be the vote recorded by the system, how they do that should be an acknowledgment by the system to the voting member of what they received as their vote.
Dennis
Dennis-
I am meeting with Mgmt today. I do not see anything specifically outlawing an online vote in 1804 or 1812. It state “some other form of delivery, including the use of email or as fax delivery. I see nothing specific for online systems, either for or against. Where would I find these specifics? THANK YOU!
Steve,
The use of on-line voting systems was authorized in 2017 for the non-profit corporation act in section 10-3708. Section 33-1812 specifically states “Notwithstanding section 10-3708 or the provisions of the community documents …” . The association is required to allow votes to be provided in person and by absentee ballot or other form of delivery such as fax or e-mail. Because it specifically excludes any provision of section 10-3708 from applying to absentee ballots it bans the use of on-line voting for planned communities. Absentee ballots can be submitted by mail, e-mail of fax alone, and even if those forms are allowed the association must still allow votes to be cast in-person at any meeting of the members.
While I personally have no problem with on-line voting systems for planned communities if managed and used properly, they are currently not allowed for use in planned communities or condominiums despite the wishful belief of all association managers and attorneys.
While the provisions of the non-profit corporation act can be used by these association they cannot be used if a conflict exist between the non-profit corporation act and the planned community act. The confict arises because the planned community act excludes section 10-3708 in its entirety for use in association elections.
Dennis
Dennis