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Election Results – Public Record?
By
Jan Bergemann
Published
January 16, 2015
This
week we were blogging again about elections --and what all goes
wrong. Believe me: Election disputes are most likely the most
common topic I am being contacted about.
Here
is another common SNAFU -- Publishing of Election Results:
Never
forget, we live in the world famous state that couldn’t get
the national election results correct in the year 2000. We were
the laughing-stock of the world!
Now
imagine the media would have reported the results of the 2012
election as follows: Obama won, but that’s all we are telling
you because we don’t want to offend and/or shame the loser
Mitt Romney by publishing the vote count! I betcha, all hell
would have broken lose after that announcement!
Why
do boards and/or election committees in community associations
think that it is absolutely acceptable to do the same after the
annual election?
They just announce the “winners” – no election results, no
nothing!
I
get contacted by a lot of candidates who would like to know the
exact election results. But they are only being told that the
results are secret and will not be revealed because “they
don’t want to hurt anyone's feelings.”
Some
boards will go even further and disallow owners to inspect the
election documents and will use the excuse that the actual
results could “leak” out if inspection or copying is
allowed.
Let’s
face it: We are all adults. Somebody who volunteers to be a
candidate for the board of directors should be aware that there
is a chance of losing – if the election deck isn’t stacked.
And candidates have an interest to know the margin of their loss
in order to decide if they could have done better with more
effective campaigning and/or if they should try again next year!
And
how would anybody know if the results that are used to proclaim
the winners are correct? What keeps the people in power from
announcing the candidates they personally prefer as the winner?
This announcement method -- like so many other things in our
community associations -- doesn’t make any sense, and it’s
actually violating the statutes. Election documents are part of
the so-called public records and can be inspected or copied by
each owner who makes a public record request as required by
Florida
statutes.
The
statutes actually require that all election records, ballots,
sign-in sheets, etc. shall be maintained for a period of
one year from the date of the election – or after the next
annual election has been conducted.
It’s
not about hurting anyone's feelings
–
it’s
about violating the law!
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Jan Bergemann is president of Cyber Citizens For Justice,
Florida
's largest state-wide property owners' advocacy group.
CCFJ works on legislation to help owners living in
community
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associations. He moved to
Florida
in 1995 - hoping to retire. He moved into a HOA, where the
developer cheated the homeowners and used the association dues
for his own purposes. End of retirement!
CCFJ was born in the year 2000, when some owners met in
Tallahassee
- finding out that power is only in numbers. Bergemann was a
member of Governor Jeb Bush's HOA Task force in 2003/2004.
The organization has two websites to inform interested
Florida
homeowners and condo owners:
News Website: http://www.ccfj.net/.
Educational Website: http://www.ccfjfoundation.net/.
We think that only owners can really represent owners, since all
service providers surely have a different interest! We are
trying to create owner-friendly laws, but the best laws are
useless without enforcement. And enforcement is totally lacking
in
Florida
!
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