Elections

Five layers decide your rules, not one

Five layers can govern a single election question: a notice period, who can run, what happens on a tie. In order, they are federal law (rarely involved), a state statute written specifically for common-interest developments if one exists, the state's general nonprofit corporation law, your own CC&Rs and bylaws, and the parliamentary authority your bylaws name, usually some edition of Robert's Rules. Where a state has written that CID-specific layer, it overrides the general corporation law whenever the two conflict.

"Where conflicts arise between this article and California's Nonprofit Mutual Benefit Corporation Law, the provisions of this article shall prevail."

Source: California Civil Code §5100, California Legislative Information

Not every state has written that CID-specific layer. California, Nevada, and Florida regulate elections in real detail; most states do not, which pushes the answer further down the stack, to general corporate law and to your own governing documents. Check whether your state has a dedicated HOA or CID election statute before assuming any specific number in this course applies to you.

One election, seven moving parts

A board election has a shape, whether or not your state regulates it in detail. A candidate has to qualify and get nominated. The association has to give notice and hand out a ballot. Someone independent has to count it. The board has to report the result. There is a window where someone can challenge it. A seat that opens mid-term gets filled the same way corporate law fills any board vacancy, by the board itself, unless the bylaws say members do it directly. Robert's Rules of Order fills in whatever step your state and your documents leave blank: how nominations happen at a meeting, what a tie means, how a vacancy gets filled when nobody wrote it down.

Where boards go wrong most often

Three mistakes come up again and again. First, that the chair breaks a tie. Under Robert's Rules, a tie in a ballot election is a failed election, not a decision for the chair.

"A tie vote in an election means that another election must be held."

Source: Tie vote fails, Jurassic Parliament

Second, that an unopposed race can just be waved through. In a state that regulates elections in detail, running unopposed changes the outcome, not the number of notices and votes the process still requires. Third, that Robert's Rules bans proxy voting outright. By default it does not recognize proxies, but it steps aside the moment law or the bylaws authorize them. Confirm whether your state statute addresses proxies, and what your own bylaws say, before assuming either way.