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Rules of calling the vote on a condo law by-law change


Guest Victor Voul

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The board of directors of a Virginia condo board has asked condo unit owners to vote on a proposed by-law change which requires a 2/3 yes vote in order to pass.

There are 100 unit owners. Therefore 67 yes votes would be needed for passage.

Ballots were sent out and several follow up letters were sent because of unit owners who did not respond by mailing back ballots.

After three months there have been 58 yes votes received along with 28 no votes and 14 unit owners have still not responded.

What is the rule for calling a vote and bringing closure to the vote??

Three letters have been sent to the eleven non responders asking them to return the ballots they were sent.

Three telephone call messages have been left on their answering machines numbers of record requesting the same.

What is the rule about calling a final vote on the proposal?

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RONR has no rules that fit your situation -- the book assumes that all votes take place in meetings and says that if voting by mail (or by other outside-the-meeting methods, like e-mail) is to be allowed all the necessary rules will have to be spelled out in your bylaws, or condo documents.

So you will have scour those documents to see if the voting can go on "forever" or has to stop at some point.

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The board of directors of a Virginia condo board has asked condo unit owners to vote on a proposed by-law change which requires a 2/3 yes vote in order to pass.

There are 100 unit owners. Therefore 67 yes votes would be needed for passage.

Not necessarily.

d42qu2

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The board of directors of a Virginia condo board has asked condo unit owners to vote on a proposed by-law change which requires a 2/3 yes vote in order to pass.

There are 100 unit owners. Therefore 67 yes votes would be needed for passage.

Are you sure that's what the bylaws say? If they require a 2/3 vote, that only means that there must be twice as many Yes votes as No votes, out of those votes actually cast. Only if they specifically require 2/3 of the entire membership can you state with certainty how many Yes votes are needed.

Ballots were sent out and several follow up letters were sent because of unit owners who did not respond by mailing back ballots.

After three months there have been 58 yes votes received along with 28 no votes and 14 unit owners have still not responded.

What is the rule for calling a vote and bringing closure to the vote??

Three letters have been sent to the eleven non responders asking them to return the ballots they were sent.

Three telephone call messages have been left on their answering machines numbers of record requesting the same.

What is the rule about calling a final vote on the proposal?

You probably should have set a deadline for the return of ballots at the outset, at which point you could have counted the votes and noted that the measure was adopted by a 2/3 vote. Or, if you really discovered that 67 votes really were required, you could have determined that the measure was rejected.

Going on without ever closing the polls is not a good idea, as you're learning. You might end up with a situation like the ratification of the 27th amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which was proposed in 1789, and finally got the requisite number of votes in 1992.

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The board of directors of a Virginia condo board has asked condo unit owners to vote on a proposed by-law change which requires a 2/3 yes vote in order to pass.

There are 100 unit owners. Therefore 67 yes votes would be needed for passage.

Ballots were sent out and several follow up letters were sent because of unit owners who did not respond by mailing back ballots.

After three months there have been 58 yes votes received along with 28 no votes and 14 unit owners have still not responded.

What is the rule for calling a vote and bringing closure to the vote??

Three letters have been sent to the eleven non responders asking them to return the ballots they were sent.

Three telephone call messages have been left on their answering machines numbers of record requesting the same.

What is the rule about calling a final vote on the proposal?

This is beyond RONR, so rendering a valid opinion would require a thorough review of your governing documents, which is beyond the scope of this forum.

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The board of directors of a Virginia condo board has asked condo unit owners to vote on a proposed by-law change which requires a 2/3 yes vote in order to pass.

There are 100 unit owners. Therefore 67 yes votes would be needed for passage.

Based on the facts presented, only 2/3 of the votes cast would need to be in the affirmative. You'd only need 67 votes if all 100 members voted. But see FAQ #6 for more information.

Ballots were sent out and several follow up letters were sent because of unit owners who did not respond by mailing back ballots.

After three months there have been 58 yes votes received along with 28 no votes and 14 unit owners have still not responded.

What is the rule for calling a vote and bringing closure to the vote??

Mail voting must be authorized by your Bylaws to be valid. If authorized, then a deadline should be set for the closing of the polls, if no time period is specified by your rules. Members who haven't responded by the deadline are assumed to have abstained. You also shouldn't be opening the ballots until the deadline has passed. See RONR, 11th ed., pgs. 424-425 for more information.

For what it's worth, 58 votes in the affirmative is 2/3 of the votes cast so far.

Three letters have been sent to the eleven non responders asking them to return the ballots they were sent.

Three telephone call messages have been left on their answering machines numbers of record requesting the same.

What is the rule about calling a final vote on the proposal?

As noted, you should have set a deadline ahead of time (or one might already be set by your rules). This is quite a mess, but the best I can come up with is that the body authorized to order the mail vote should meet ASAP and adopt a motion to close the polls at some specified time.

It's also interesting that the number of members who have not responded dropped by three in the course of a few sentences. If they keep up at that rate, you'll have 100% participation in no time. ;)

RONR has no rules that fit your situation -- the book assumes that all votes take place in meetings and says that if voting by mail (or by other outside-the-meeting methods, like e-mail) is to be allowed all the necessary rules will have to be spelled out in your bylaws, or condo documents.

So you will have scour those documents to see if the voting can go on "forever" or has to stop at some point.

This is beyond RONR, so rendering a valid opinion would require a thorough review of your governing documents, which is beyond the scope of this forum.

Nonsense. The proper method to conduct a vote by mail is described in RONR, 11th ed., pgs. 424-425 - unless, of course, the organization's rules provide otherwise.

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Nonsense.

It's not nonsense, if you accept the fact that procedural rules concerning HOAs in Virginia would supersede RONR, according to parliamentary law.

The proper method to conduct a vote by mail is described in RONR, 11th ed., pgs. 424-425 - unless, of course, the organization's rules provide otherwise.

Actually, it's not "unless the organization's rules provide otherwise;" it's if the organization's rules so provide, since voting by mail must be authorized in the bylaws or required by law.

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It's not nonsense, if you accept the fact that procedural rules concerning HOAs in Virginia would supersede RONR, according to parliamentary law.

But it's possible that they have neglected to adopt detailed rules on the subject. Although I concede that there may also be procedural rules in state law which govern this topic.

Actually, it's not "unless the organization's rules provide otherwise;" it's if the organization's rules so provide, since voting by mail must be authorized in the bylaws or required by law.

I am in perfect agreement that mail voting must be authorized in the organization's rules to be valid. If an organization has authorized mail voting, however, then RONR has rules for how to handle such votes in the absence of any conflicting higher-level rules.

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RONR doesn't suggest setting a deadline for returning ballots - which seems to be part of the OP's problem.

RONR appears to assume that the mail (&c.) votes will be counted at the next (regular) meeting which is an implicit deadline. But you would need an explicit one when the "regular" meetings are only annual ones, like most condos I have known.

Also any set of mail vote (including e-mail or Internet ballots) rules should require a minimum return of ballots for validity -- this is the functional equivalent of a quorum at a meeting.

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RONR doesn't suggest setting a deadline for returning ballots - which seems to be part of the OP's problem.

RONR appears to assume that the mail (&c.) votes will be counted at the next (regular) meeting which is an implicit deadline. But you would need an explicit one when the "regular" meetings are only annual ones, like most condos I have known.

Well, on closer inspection, I see you're right that RONR doesn't specifically say the assembly should set a deadline. I don't agree that RONR assumes that the next meeting will serve as the deadline, however, since RONR starts off the post by noting that mail votes are common in "scientific societies or in alumni associations whose members may be active in many countries," organizations which also may well meet annually (or even less often) (RONR, 11th ed., pg. 424, lines 9-11).

In any event, RONR provides a number of other rules for use in a mail vote. So perhaps we can compromise and say that some of the necessary rules will need to be spelled out in the organization's own rules.

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