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ELECTIONS -- OR A NIGHTMARE?
By
Jan Bergemann
Published November 15, 2024
Elections are the talk of the town in
the moment – not only in Washington, but as well in Florida’s
community associations. But like in Washington elections in
community associations often turn into a nightmare. And the
longer it takes to count the votes – or if the counting is done
in secret, the bigger the suspicion of fraud.
Election and recall litigation is
number 2 on the list of most often litigated problems, closely
behind record inspections.
And while Florida’s legislators made
serious attempts to fix the record inspection problems – let’s
see how that turns out – the election provisions in the HOA Act
(FS 720.306) are just a joke and plainly invite to
election fraud. Actually, a sitting board can legally make sure
that they get re-elected if they so choose.
The HOA Act still allows the board to
create a so-called election committee – and they can appoint
spouses or friends to this committee. This committee then
decides that only the sitting board members are “qualified” and
only their names appear on the ballot. According to the statutes
other candidates can still nominate themselves from the floor at
the meeting, but we all know how write-in candidates fare. They
have in all reality no chance!
Didn’t we learn from the election
disaster in 2020 that fair and honest elections are important?
If we want to keep peace in our
community associations, our legislators should make sure that
the statutes create provisions for elections that seriously
lower the chances for election fraud. But even electronic voting
isn’t secure, since there always has to be a person in the
background who controls the count. But if electronic voting is
being used, election fraud might be very difficult to prove.
Paper ballots are still the best way to give everybody
interested the opportunity to check if the voting and counting
was done correctly.
FAIR ELECTIONS SHOULD BE A MUST IN OUR COMMUNITY ASSOCIATIONS!
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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 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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