How to Beat the Quorum Quandary

Has your HOA’s annual meeting become a gamble on whether your association can conduct business?  HOA governing documents require that an association must hold an annual meeting and that a quorum of the membership must attend or give their “proxy” in order to vote on business matters with paper ballots.

Pressed for time with the demands of work and school activities, many owners simply don’t have time to make the HOA’s annual meeting a priority.

If owners fail to turn out or submit enough proxies, the meeting must be reconvened at a later date. This results in additional expense and delay in conducting association business, such as electing board members or voting on amendments. 

Benefits to Associations

Online voting is gaining enthusiastic support in HOAs as a solution to the quandaries of low-turn-out, delay and expense in reconvened meetings. By offering owners the ability to vote and assign their proxy online, communities find it much easier to achieve a quorum for the annual meeting.

• E-voting saves the expense of having to reconvene a meeting. This can include space rental, mailing meeting notices and other administrative and set-up fees.
• E-voting makes it more convenient to hold a vote to elect board members and amend governing documents.  Most governing documents require a vote of 2/3 of all owners to pass amendments.

For example, maybe the documents are ambiguous about whether owners can install a backyard shed.  The Board proposes an amendment to allow sheds that meet certain requirements.   Or maybe owners would like to change their payment cycle from once a year, to quarterly.  Online voting can make a vote to amend the documents more likely to garner a 2/3 vote to pass or fail.

• 3^rd party vendors who offer e-voting apps for HOAs have made it more attractive and affordable with tiered pricing based on the number of homes and an annual subscription fee for unlimited use.

Besides a board election, the association could opt to conduct a survey about amending the assessment payment cycle to test opinion, before deciding to pursue an amendment.

• The process is usually as simple as owners use their login and password to vote on a website.  E-voting offers the added benefit of driving owners to the association website where associations can also post board candidate profiles and other information.
• Owners can easily cast votes for board members, or simply assign their proxy so that their “participation” can be counted toward a quorum for the annual meeting.
• The log-in system prevents duplicate voting, as sometimes happen when paper ballots are mailed and then an owner also attends the meeting and votes again.   Another benefit, the final vote tally is available quickly without a manual count of votes.

You’ll want to choose a vendor that is familiar with Texas law and requirements for HOA elections.  E-voting measures up as a convenient and affordable option to give owners easier access to take part in association business.  As your management company, CMA can help your community beat the quorum quandary with e-voting.

Rob Koop

AMS®, CMCA®
Executive Vice President of Portfolio Operations

If you found this article helpful, you may also find other topics relevant to your HOA on this blog at Community. Well-Served.