Voting a New Way?

[Guest ST]

The board of our Association has called a special meeting for the purpose of voting to secure a loan. A simple majority is needed, which in our case is 31.

    The notice said, "The vote will take place at the meeting. Unless a majority of all unit owners vote to approve or reject the proposed action, the meeting will be continued for the purpose of obtaining votes. The vote will remain open until enough votes are received to approve or reject the proposed action."

   The notice arrived with a ballot and a proxy.

    Then, the notice said, "If you are not able to attend the meeting in person, please mail your proxy and/or your ballot" to the property manager, or "you may provide your proxy or ballot to a unit owner attending the meeting."

    We conduct business according to RRNR. There is no superseding law or directive.

1. May a meeting be continued like this?

2. May a vote remain open like this?

3. May ballots be delivered in these myriad ways -- in person, by mail, by giving your ballot to another unit owner, by mailing in or giving your proxy to another unit owner?

4. Is there any other insight you can supply about this vote?

Many thanks in advance!

[Gary Novosielski]

There is no way to determine that a "simple" majority is 31 unless you know exactly how may people will cast votes.  There may be absentees or abstentions.

 

RONR prohibits proxy voting by default, so if you have no superseding law, any proxies will be null and void.  In fact, if the rules in RONR apply, this entire exercise is improper in a dozen ways

[Josh Martin]

The board of our Association has called a special meeting for the purpose of voting to secure a loan. A simple majority is needed, which in our case is 31.

    The notice said, "The vote will take place at the meeting. Unless a majority of all unit owners vote to approve or reject the proposed action, the meeting will be continued for the purpose of obtaining votes. The vote will remain open until enough votes are received to approve or reject the proposed action."

   The notice arrived with a ballot and a proxy.

    Then, the notice said, "If you are not able to attend the meeting in person, please mail your proxy and/or your ballot" to the property manager, or "you may provide your proxy or ballot to a unit owner attending the meeting."

    We conduct business according to RRNR. There is no superseding law or directive.

1. May a meeting be continued like this?

2. May a vote remain open like this?

3. May ballots be delivered in these myriad ways -- in person, by mail, by giving your ballot to another unit owner, by mailing in or giving your proxy to another unit owner?

4. Is there any other insight you can supply about this vote?

Many thanks in advance!

 

If it is indeed correct that RONR is controlling and there is nothing in the bylaws or applicable law on this subject (which seems unlikely for an HOA, but whatever):

 

1.) No.

2.) No.

3.) No. In person only.

4.) There is no need to hold the vote open until there are enough votes to approve or reject the motion. If there aren't enough votes to approve it, it's rejected. There is no middle ground where the motion is neither approved nor rejected.

 

Also, do the bylaws actually say you need a majority of all unit owners? If RONR is controlling, a majority of the members present and voting is sufficient, so long as a quorum is present.

[Guest ST]

For the Association to assign rights to future income as collateral for this loan, which is what this vote is about, our bylaws state it must be by a simple majority of all unit owners. There are sixty of us; so, a simple majority is thirty-one.