HOA Nomination and Election Question (appointed, law, floor)

[Solere]

The Bylaws of the HOA I am a Board member of state "Nomination for election to the Board of Directors shall be made by a Nominating Committee. A Nominating Committee shall take suggestions for nominations commencing sixty (60) days prior to the Annual Meeting and nominations may also be made from the floor at the annual meeting of the Members. The Nominating Committee shall be appointed by the Board of Directors prior to each annual meeting of the Members, to serve from the close of such annual meeting until the close of the next annual meeting. The Nominating Committee shall make as many nominations for election to the Board of Directors as it shall, in its discretion determine, but not less than the number of vacancies that are to be filled. Such nominations may be made from among the Members or non-Members."

Proxies have been outlawed since by state statute and effectively nominations from the floor.

Our HOA did not have a Nominating Committee and instead sent out an email to all the members asking them to submit their candidate statements which were due on a certain date. Those have been forwarded to the management company. Now a few days after the deadline one of our Board members emails the management company indicating that more candidate statements are forthcoming. My concern is what if one of the candidates finds out through loose lips that additional names were put on the ballot after the deadline given to unit owners to submit candidate statements and raises a stink or does the equivalent of a "public records request" and finds out that one Board member via an email submitted additional names after the deadline. What are the consequences? Will the election be invalid? So far no Board member has emailed the offending Board member or the management company about the Board member's plan to put additional names on the ballot.

The HOA Bylaws say no more about nominations other than the first paragraph of this post. They are so poorly written and give no time limit so could the Board member with late entries claim he/she has a right to nominate and submit candidates even after a deadline?

[cully]

I'm thinking about the allowance for additional nominations made after the 60 days prior period. Where it says nominations may be made from the floor at the annual meeting.

Can you just quote the bylaw and say something casual like wait up...we'll be glad to take those addtional late nominees but have to do it according to bylaws... from the floor on the day of the meeting.

[thinkalot]

I doubt if the election would be invalid. You only had a date to turn in candidate statements not to be placed on the ballot. Maybe some interested people were unavailable and did not get the information in time. Maybe some people that were interested do not have email and found out by word of mouth. I think you are nit picking. I don't know if email is considered conspicuous posting. I know that email and Arizona law has changed several times in the recent past. It is hard enough to get people to run, why would you want to cause a problem?

We got rid of the nominating committee when we rewrote our bylaws. We put out a notice that says tell us if you want to run.

[cully]

Usually, you have the nominations. I haven't heard of a deadline for turning them in but you need to go by your bylaws. The thing is there are also nominations from the floor at the meeting. THEN, after all that they are counted. And since your bylaws calls for those floor nominations, you can count ahead to save time I guess but you can't NOT have those nominiations from the floor.

I have seen that mostly there are none from the floor. But they are called for in bylaws so they are called for at the meeting.

[Solere]

Originally Posted by cully

Usually, you have the nominations. I haven't heard of a deadline for turning them in but you need to go by your bylaws. The thing is there are also nominations from the floor at the meeting. THEN, after all that they are counted. And since your bylaws calls for those floor nominations, you can count ahead to save time I guess but you can't NOT have those nominiations from the floor.

I have seen that mostly there are none from the floor. But they are called for in bylaws so they are called for at the meeting.

A.R.S. 33-1812 essentially banned nominations from the floor. A good explanation is found here. State statutes override HOA bylaws.

Arizona HOA's change from proxy voting to absentee ballots

[cully]

Oy. So what are you planning to do now?