Dear Tony: We have a special general meeting coming up in mid July that will include four special resolutions. All of them will be controversial — two are for major repairs requiring special levies and the other two are petitioned items for bylaw amendments removing our age and rental restriction bylaws.
The council have been debating the type of voting we will conduct, and the president has decided we will do the voting by ballot; however, he has also insisted that we write the number of each unit on the ballot.
What happens when we distribute these ballots and the owners refuse to include their unit numbers?
We are not sure we can insist upon a record of how each unit has voted.
Claire M. Langley
Dear Claire: The Strata Property Act, the Schedule of Standard Bylaws of the Act and any bylaw amendments that your strata corporation has adopted will likely provide the answers you are seeking.
The Schedule of Standard Bylaws contain a provision that allows for voting by one of several methods: a show of voting cards, a precise count if requested, secret ballot or some other method.
Under section 27 of the Standard Bylaws, if a precise count is requested, the chair must decide on the method. However, an election of council or any other vote must be held by secret ballot if a secret ballot is requested by an eligible voter.
As permitted by the act, many strata corporations have amended section 27 of the standard bylaws, and have made the chairman solely responsible for deciding on the method of voting, which may or may not require that a secret ballot is mandatory if requested.
If a strata corporation removes the ability for the owners to demand a secret ballot, it creates an atmosphere of accountability, which might be a good or a bad thing.
For instance, people who gave their proxies to other owners will now have a record of how they voted, which is a positive. But it would be a negative for those people afraid of recriminations if they do not vote for the popular decision, whether appropriate or not.
The chairman is limited by the authority he or she is granted through the bylaws and the act. Section 50 of the act essentially rests the balance of authority of the meeting within the majority of the eligible voting quorum at the meeting.
In the case of Claire’s strata, the bylaws do not grant the decision-making authority of voting procedures to the chairman. If any eligible voter at the meeting requests a secret ballot, the ballot must be conducted by secret ballot. Secret requires that the ballot does not have strata lot numbers or identifying information. Where possible, the parties should have the opportunity to use a secure voting booth and ballot box, each proxy and eligible vote must have a separate ballot, and the scrutineers who count ballots are compelled to confidentiality.
This is easy enough in a residential strata where each condo gets one vote. It’s not always possible to maintain clear ballots in a commercial strata, for instance, because each strata lot will have a different voting strength. For instance, a group of stores of various sizes might have a system of one vote per 100 square feet of floor space. In such a case, each ballot would have to signify the voting strength it carries to ensure their votes are properly counted.
If the owners vote to destroy the ballots after the meeting, immediately destroy them. If the owners do not vote to destroy the ballots, seal them in an envelope and retain them in a secure location until they are required for future access or destroyed.
Tony Gioventu is executive director of the Condominium Home Owners’ Association. Send questions to him by email or write c/o At Home, Times Colonist, 2621 Douglas St., Victoria, B.C. V8W 2N4. The association’s website is www.choa.bc.ca.