Election results

[Guest Theresa]

At our HOA annual meeting to vote for Board members, a call for nominations went out 2 months in advance with a deadline.  At the deadline only 2 names had been submitted.  There were 3 open seats.  At the meeting, the President announced that a fourth seat had opened up mid term due to health issues.  The floor was opened for additional nominees and no one came forward.  The floor was closed for nominees and the 2 candidates introduced themselves.  The president than opened elections.  The Bylaws state that a decision by the majority present or by proxy is required to win.  There were 54 people in attendance.  When the votes were counted, the 2 names on the ballot had each received 46 votes.  3 names were written on the paper (no lines) and each received 6,6, and 5 votes consecutively.   Do these write in names automatically get a seat on the board?  Thank you!

[Atul Kapur]

No. 6 is not a majority of 54. Neither is 5.

[Josh Martin]

On 2/29/2024 at 9:09 AM, Guest Theresa said:

The Bylaws state that a decision by the majority present or by proxy is required to win.  There were 54 people in attendance.  When the votes were counted, the 2 names on the ballot had each received 46 votes.  3 names were written on the paper (no lines) and each received 6,6, and 5 votes consecutively.   Do these write in names automatically get a seat on the board?

No. The two persons receiving 46 votes were elected.

A second round of voting would need to be held for the remaining two positions.

[Gary Novosielski]

The paraphrase of the voting threshold is not enough to convince me that the threshold is actually a majority of those present, rather than a majority of the ballots cast, but in this example that is not significant, since 6 votes out of at least 46 ballots cast is still nowhere near a majority.

I concur that the election is incomplete and those remaining seats must be filled by additional balloting.

I do question why there were no extra lines on the ballot, especially since it was obvious that write-ins would be necessary.  But they should be there even when there is a full list of candidates nominated.

[Josh Martin]

On 2/29/2024 at 5:24 PM, Gary Novosielski said:

The paraphrase of the voting threshold is not enough to convince me that the threshold is actually a majority of those present, rather than a majority of the ballots cast, but in this example that is not significant, since 6 votes out of at least 46 ballots cast is still nowhere near a majority.

Certainly, there were at least 46 ballots cast, but there could have been as many as 54. We were not told how many ballots were cast in total.

[Gary Novosielski]

On 3/1/2024 at 8:33 AM, Josh Martin said:

Certainly, there were at least 46 ballots cast, but there could have been as many as 54. We were not told how many ballots were cast in total.

That is quite true.  But my point was that if a given vote count was less than a majority of the minimum number, it could not then be a majority of any larger number.