Election Process in Turmoil

If you express an opinion,
someone will think you're an idiot

Two emails have come my way expressing frustration about the current election process.  The last one motivated me to write this article about a recent observation.  My curiosity was originally piqued by the 1-year/2-year designations of candidates, mostly because I didn't remember anything about this in the covenants or bylaws.

Paragraph "3.5 Term" of our bylaws states that "Members of the Board shall serve for a term of (2) years." They will serve until either their successors are elected; they die; resign; or are removed.  In the case of a resignation, the Board can appoint a replacement whose term expires at the annual meeting.

There isn't a provision for electing or appointing a successor to complete the remainder of a term; but interestingly, the WA State HOA statute (P2) says the Board "may fill vacancies in its membership of the unexpired portion of any term." 

The Board's goal has been to offset terms, with 4 members staying, and 4 new ones elected each year.  This has been a great way to maintain continuity, and has worked until this specific election cycle.  The new issues have arisen because several Board members are resigning at the same time, and we've had an onslaught of new volunteers.  No one should question a Board member's decision to resign...in fact, the better question is why anyone would be willing to serve on our Board!  A question I'm still asking myself.

We could potentially match the bylaws to the process by passing an amendment.   Unfortunately, the current process is inconsistent with WA HOA statute (P2), because the Board doesn't have the authority to specify the "terms of office of members of the board of directors," and community members haven't approved a bylaws amendment to include a 1-year term.

We could also match the process to the bylaws, where every candidate is elected to a 2-year term.  In this case,  the current proxy ballots require modification and the election process will need to be delayed.  After electing new Board members, we can get back on track with the offsetting terms policy by using planned resignations after one year.  In my little bubble, I don't have all the information or ideas, but we seem to have an issue that needs to be addressed.  Here's how the process has played out for one owner in a private email to me:

[...] I am now concerned about my proxy ballot for association board members. I sent the first one in via mail after I received it and included the additional people on the ballot that Rob had e-mailed, this was the first addendum that included Dave Reynolds. After I mailed it I received the message that many more names had stepped forward and that my ballot for the board would not be counted. I complained to Rob along with others and was sent another proxy ballot. I promptly filled it out and sent it in, then we got a message about how many should be for the 2-year positions and how many for the 1- year positions. I had enough with the balloting, so I let my ballot stand. Also, when filling it out I struggled with who to vote for beyond you, Dave R., Nancy Miller, Owen Roberts. But it was stated/implied that I had to vote for 7 positions. So I did some guessing. Later I saw that we don't have to cast seven votes!

I am now concerned about blindly casting some of my votes, and also what they will do with my ballot if I selected too many for the 1 year positions and too few from the 2 year positions or the opposite. I don't want my ballot to be ignored, but I would also like to vote knowing that I could vote for only those that I had confidence in the direction they would take.

This isn't right or fair to community members.  This is an important election, and owners need to have a clear understanding about the process and their choices.  As inconvenient as it is, we probably need a do-over in order to make this right.  I favor leaving the bylaws as-is and electing all Board members to 2-year terms.  This prevents the balloting fusion we're seeing when candidates are running with different terms.