The convenience and ease of running an online meeting ensures more people can participate — and reduces the costs for members and boards to hold in-person meetings. Electronic voting methods ensure you can create a fair and equitable process for all stakeholders, especially when moving to an online or hybrid format.
The rise of online HOA elections helps owners and board members comply with HOA voting rules while allowing greater flexibility for more unit owners and members to participate in the process.
But is it right for your HOA board?
Let’s dive into the advantages and rules of using an online voting service for your HOA board elections.
Why Take Advantage of Online Voting For Your HOA Elections
Whether you’re ready to make the switch or just starting to research the options for adopting online HOA elections, let’s look at some benefits.
Achieve quorum
It’s easier to get more residents to participate and stay involved in a meeting when they can’t or aren’t interested in attending in person. Electronic, asynchronous voting makes it far easier to comply with HOA voting rules and achieve a quorum for your vote.
Support member needs
Bring the ease of modern tools and life into your voting process. Unit owners want convenience and ease, just like they get when paying bills or submitting maintenance requests online. With online voting, residents can vote from anywhere and don’t have to worry about scheduling conflicts or achieving quorum.
Eliminate human error
Online voting means you don’t have to deal with illegible writing or an inadvertent keystroke when tallying results from a homeowners association voting ballot. Electronic votes ensure every ballot is accurately calculated and correctly tallied.
Reduce expenses
Online voting eliminates the cost of paper, stamps, staff to distribute ballots, reprints for lost or missing ballots, and the other expenses related to sending out paper ballots and information to unit residents. Moving votes online ensures you can still follow condo board voting procedures while reducing the time and expenses associated with these older methods of voting.
Steps to Take Before Setting Up Electronic Voting for Your HOA
Not every state allows electronic voting for HOA Elections. Some states have HOA voting rules that require votes to be cast on a written ballot and in person. Some states require that the use of electronic voting needs to be written into community bylaws before it can be allowed.
So if you’re considering an online voting service for your HOA elections, the first step is to find out if it's allowed in your state.
Once you establish that online HOA elections are allowed in your state, you’ll need to get familiar with the rules for administering an election. Each state has varying requirements. Some require you to notify every member of your co-op, condo or HOA before every election of their right to opt-in to electronic voting. Others may only require you to notify them once.
Then, choose a vendor that will help you comply with your state’s laws. At a minimum, the online voting service should be able to:
- track and display votes
- provide secure access to the online HOA election platform
- provide voters with a receipt including a date and time stamp
Another beneficial feature is when your online voting service naturally integrates with the tools and resources you already use to manage your properties and communicate with residents.
BuildingLink is a leading provider of property management solutions, with tools to help you coordinate everything you need to run a condo, co-op, or connect with an HOA. Features like BuildingBoard are fully integrated, allowing you to run board meetings remotely and collect electronic votes.
Connect with BuildingLink to find out more about how you can administer online HOA elections and Board Meetings with our convenient and intuitive tools.