Election results postponed due to lack of 16 more votes needed to fulfill 50%

Hi,

We just had an election on 1/3/12 to vote on the restating of our CC&R's and Bylaws
472 ballots were sent out we received 221 back which in essence was 16 votes short
for the requirements to pass or fail or the majority of the Voting Power.
Current law states
"Extended Voting. Because of the high approval requirements found in older documents (often 75%), it will be difficult to obtain the necessary number of ballots. The Inspector of Elections may extend balloting one or more times to solicit ballots from apathetic voters. Civil Code §1363.03(c)(3)(f)&(h)."

The Board President stated he felt they needed at least 350 ballots to pass and the Board Not The Inspector of Elections made a resolution to extend voting but did not put a time limit on it The President and I use the term loosley wants it to pass and it seems as if he will wait until he gets the ballots he feels will pass the propsed documents. My husband who was at the meeting informed the Board it was the Inspector of Elections who was in charge but they just ignored my husband. So everyone left the meeting without resolution of how long he is going to wait before continuing the vote counting. Does anyone have any idea of how long the vote can be suspened is it just until a mority of the ballots come in?

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Thank you,
B

Hi,

No the votes were unopened and not counted and the Inspectorrr has them in his possession which is how it should be. It is just frustrating because the 1st election was cancelled altogther when angry residents found out what was in the documents even though the Board President was touting them as fabulous. They redid the docs and they did remove some things but then they added more rules
which were even worse in my opinion. Our neighborhood has been here since 1954 and is made up of 468 single family homes, 9 - 6 unit apartment builings and 10- 2unit duplexes. We have 1 pool and 2 parks as our only common area. The only restricitons we had persay was to pay your assessment and follow the regulation set forth by Local and State Laws and that was about it.
The documents that were drafted were boiler plate condo rules and regs
which did not really fit with our unique neighborhood. They want to tell people who have lived here since 1960 what color thier house can be painted. Ugh

Brenda - I guess I missed the back story about your situation. But usually, the CCRs are automatically extended UNLESS there is a vote to disband. That voting threshold is set very high. It's not a light decision to disband the HOA.

Could you explain why you need this high threshold APPROVAL vote at this time?

Brenda,

The Davis-Stirling web site discusses this on it's Closing & Reopening the Polls web page. Per that page they identify the conflict and even state that "Boards of directors will need to decide how to address this issue through their Election Rules with the advice of the association's legal counsel." Therefore, it appears it's confusing even for the legal professionals.

I'm curious about the language in your documents that have you believe you may only amend them once every 10 years. If possible, would you post that section?

I ask because even though most CC&Rs auto renew every 10 years, they may be amended at anytime providing the votes are there to amend.

Brenda - how do you know you need 16 more votes to pass this?

The ballots must NOT be opened and counted - and then the vote postponed until enough yes votes come in so it can pass. That is not the intent in extending a voting time period.

It's also possible, Brenda, that some of the ballots cast may be invalid, which is up to the Inspector of Election to determine. The most common reasons in our HOA is when h'owner do not fill out the return address info on the outside envelope or fail to sign it.