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ELECTRONIC VOTING – IS IT A SOLUTION OR A PROBLEM?
By
Eric Glazer, Esq.
Published August 10, 2015
On Friday, I had the pleasure of being invited to
attend a meeting of many representatives from the Department of
Business and Professional Regulation, including arbitrators and
the Condominium Ombudsman. The purpose of the meeting was to
hear from the public in regards to the new condominium statute
that would allow Boards of Directors to pass a resolution
allowing for voting by computer over the internet.
To sum it up best, I think everyone walked away from
the meeting having far more additional questions than answers.
Everyone in attendance was concerned that the integrity of the
process is going to get worse, not better. If you thought HOA
proxies are a hot commodity to collect at election time, just
wait until condo owners start asking other people for their
computer log in information which would allow them to vote in
place of the true owner of the unit. Everyone was also
concerned that while the statute says it must be “IMPOSSIBLE” to
know who voted for who, it may not be possible to make that
impossible.
When voting in person at the annual meeting, unit
owners are allowed to vote until the first ballot is opened.
Obviously, that can’t happen with electronic voting. And by the
way….. on the night of the election, who gets access to the
computer system to determine how people voted on-line? Is it
the Board members who are running for re-election? Is it the
manager? Is it the attorney? How do we prevent non owners who
live in the same household as the owner from voting?
While there weren’t many answers to these questions,
it also seemed clear that the arbitrator’s job was about to get
a lot more difficult. What happens now, when a unit owner
challenges an election by stating that the computer process used
by the association did not comply with the statute because it
did not do all of the things required by the statute? Now, the
arbitrator will have to potentially take testimony from computer
experts and decide which one is more credible. Is that what
arbitrators should be spending their time on? What happens if
the votes by computer are not available on the night of the
election? Is the election continued until the following day or
until the computer votes are tabulated? If not, do you just
forget about the computer votes and hope nobody challenges the
election? Are recall proceedings allowed to be done on an
internet voting system? Lord knows how many problems that would
create.
In all candor, there was little to no thought
process that went into the legislation passed by the House and
Senate. Perhaps the thinking was voting on your home computer
would get more people involved in the process. I’m not
convinced it will. The people who normally attend the annual
meeting will still attend the meeting and vote in person. The
other people who normally vote by mail were also already
interested in the politics of their association and would
continue to vote by mail. So it begs the question….who else is
this going to entice to vote? I say nobody. If people were
interested in voting, checking a few boxes on a paper ballot,
signing an envelope and sticking it in the mail is not such a
major roadblock as to turn an owner away from casting his or her
vote if they were interested in voting in the first place. If
internet voting is so wonderful, why is it not allowed in any
state, county or municipal election? The answer is because it
compromises the integrity of the election.
In light of all of these questions that remain
unanswered, and all of the possibilities of fraud, and failure
to comply with this new statute, it is crystal clear that there
is one particular group of people that will no doubt benefit
from the lawsuits and/or arbitration proceedings that will
result from all this confusion. You know exactly who I’m
talking about. Just type your answer below.
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About
HOA & Condo Blog
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Eric Glazer graduated from
the University of Miami School of Law in 1992 after
receiving a B.A. from NYU. He has practiced community
association law for more than 2
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decades and is the owner of Glazer
and Associates, P.A. a seven attorney law firm with offices in
Fort Lauderdale and Orlando and satellite offices in Naples,
Fort Myers and Tampa.
Since 2009, Eric has been the host
of Condo Craze and HOAs, a weekly one hour radio show that airs
at noon each Sunday on 850 WFTL.
See:
www.condocrazeandhoas.com.
He is the first attorney in the
State of Florida that designed a course that certifies
condominium residents as eligible to serve on a condominium
Board of Directors and has now certified more than 10,000
Floridians all across the state. He is certified as a Circuit
Court Mediator by The Florida Supreme Court and has mediated
dozens of disputes between associations and unit owners. Eric
also devotes significant time to advancing legislation in the
best interest of Florida community association members.
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