secret ballot
Hi Dennis. Been a long time since I’ve had to ask but now our 119 house self managed HOA is asking for a vote to raise dues over 20%. Lawyer ruled it is not in our CCRs that we may have secret ballots. Getting ready to send out ballot and looked up secret ballots online and found conflicting info: Does the Homeowner have to sign the inside ballot AND the outside of the security envelope
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Carol,
The use of secret ballots does not have to be authorized in the CC&R’s. if anything, it would be specified in the bylaws. If silent on the issue you are free to use secret ballot or not however the community decides. in either case homeowners are only required to sign and identify their unit or lot number once. If you do not use secret ballot than the homeowner would sign the ballot itself, but if you do use secret ballots than the homeowner would sign the envelope containing the ballot. This way once the ballot envelope is opened and the ballot is separated no-one can see how anyone voted. The envelopes with the signature must be retained as a record of the election along with the ballots themselves but separated for one year after the election. Since anyone can ask to see the ballots after the election with non-secret ballots, they will be able to see who voted and how they voted.
Dennis