Statutes on allowable verbiage in board election campaign materials
I recently heard the following: campaign materials produced by members running in HOA board member campaigns may NOT contain language that is “false information, opinion, defamation or accusations”.
However I can not find the statutes governing elections in which the type of language may or may not be used is covered.
Are you familiar with this claim or know the statute I should be reading?
Thank you.
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Cynthia,
Once again, this information is totally and absolutely false. There is no language in current law relative to campaign signs however i have introduced legislation this year which will be voted on in the Senate on Monday after having already passed the house without decent that assures the rights of homeowners to post campaign sign and only allows association to restrict language that is vulgar or is discriminatory against a protected class. However as with anything in the exercise of free speech not all speech is totally free you cannot intentionally say or write anything that is knowingly false for the purpose of defaming the individual. If you do you could be subject to a defamation law suit but the association cannot be the judge of anything stated on a political sign. The Bill is HB-2158 and has been painstakingly negotiated between all the HOA industry trade groups and myself. It is well on it way to becoming law in Arizona with two more steps along the way.
Dennis
Dennis,
Does this mean we can post yard signs any time of the year? We are limited in our HOA to an amount of time before the elections, then a set time to remove them afterwards.
Thank you
Holly
Holly,
The bill specifies that the association cannot limit the posting of association specific political signs after the association has distributed ballots to the members and 3 days after the election. So, the same concept would apply after this bill is made law.
The bill does not allow year-round posting of signs not associated with a voter action.
Dennis