How to run an HOA election
Running a clean board election comes down to giving proper notice, reaching quorum, and counting votes in a way everyone trusts. Here's the process, step by step — useful whether you're a volunteer secretary doing it for the first time or a manager doing it for the tenth.
Before you start
- Your association's governing documents (bylaws set most of the rules for elections — who's eligible, how much notice, what counts as quorum).
- An up-to-date roster of owners eligible to vote.
- The list of open seats and candidates.
- Your dates: nomination window, notice date, and meeting/vote date.
The specific notice periods, quorum thresholds, and ballot rules are set by your governing documents and by state law — this guide explains the general process, not your association's exact requirements. Where a number matters, it points you to your bylaws rather than stating one.
The steps
- Confirm the rules in your bylaws. Before anything else, read what your governing documents require for an election — notice period, quorum, whether voting is by ballot, proxy, or both. These govern; this guide doesn't.
- Open nominations. Announce the open seats and how owners put their name forward, with a clear deadline. Send it to every owner the way your bylaws require.
- Give proper notice of the vote. Send the meeting and voting notice to all eligible owners within the window your bylaws set, with the candidates, the date, and how to vote.
- Collect votes. Take ballots the way your documents allow — in person, by proxy, or online. Keep one clear record of who has voted so you can track quorum as it comes in.
- Confirm quorum. Before counting, verify enough eligible owners voted to meet quorum. If you haven't reached it, follow your bylaws' process (often a re-notice or an adjourned meeting).
- Count and record. Tally the votes, record the result in the minutes, and announce the outcome to owners.
Common snags
- Missing quorum. The most common reason an election fails. Send reminders ahead of the deadline and make voting as easy as possible (online voting lifts turnout because nobody has to attend in person).
- Notice that's a day short. If your bylaws say 30 days and you sent 28, the election can be challenged. Count backward from the vote date and build in a buffer.
- An out-of-date roster. A sold unit or a new owner missing from the list means someone's vote is wrong. Reconcile the roster before you open nominations.
How Arbor Lane helps
Arbor Lane runs elections end to end — it sends notice to every eligible owner, collects votes online, tracks quorum as ballots come in, and keeps the result in the record automatically. The owner roster is the same one your dues and directory run on, so it's already current.
Run the vote, keep the record.
A clean election is notice, quorum, and a count everyone trusts — and Arbor Lane handles all three from the roster you already keep. Start the trial yourself, today.
Rather talk it through first? See HOA software · There's a human on the other end
Less time on the busywork. More on the people.