Question: We were instructed to post voting forms in, but some owners who could not attend the AGM gave their forms to another lot owner. Is this OK?
Voting forms for our AGM were sent out by our Strata Manager.
We were Instructed to send votes to a post box.
Considering the unreliable delivery of the mail service, some residents who could not attend the AGM asked a committee member to take their votes in sealed envelopes to the meeting.
The scrutineer rejected these votes as invalid. Is this correct?
Answer: If the instructions on how to submit the vote aren’t followed then it is reasonable to reject votes that are not submitted that way.
William Marquand, Tower Body Corporate:
All ballot votes should contain instructions on them explaining how to submit the vote. If those instructions aren’t followed then it is reasonable to reject votes that are not submitted that way.
Most likely the ballot papers will state that they have to be submitted either directly to the returning officer or the secretary (including the body corporate manager in their delegated position) depending on the nature of the vote. If your votes were submitted to the wrong person, they were probably rejected on that basis.
Is the system fair? I think that most people would say yes in that it has an established set of rules that make vote submission equal for all parties. That’s a necessary standard for voting. However, many people would also say that the system is also overly complex and needs to be updated to reflect modern technology. Too many ballots are plagued with issues over around submissions, with postage issues topping that list. If the idea of a ballot is to capture the opinion of owners then the validity of the current system seems less robust.
Are there other alternatives to getting your vote in if there is no time for the post and you can’t make it to the AGM? Some returning offices accept votes by email – ask and see. I can see how votes submitted this way may no longer technically be perceived as secret, but the returning officer is supposed to be an independent party and hey, it is 2022, so voting perhaps this should be a more accepted practice. It may also be possible to submit your vote with a note that you are happy for it not to be secret. Secrecy is to protect individual rights but if the owner chooses to waive that right it seems reasonable to count that vote. There is nothing to say this can’t happen.
Chris Irons, Strata Solve:
Think about, for a moment, the recent Federal Election.
When you got to the polling booth, you were given the two voting papers and some pretty detailed instructions. Especially about the Senate voting paper.
Then, off into the booth you go. At that point, it was up to you what happened. You could have put in some numbers, all numbers, ticks, crosses or whatever. You could have drawn rude symbols all over your papers. You could have added other candidates, or you could have written a lengthy diatribe about your views on democracy. Or if you had a child with you at the time, you could have gotten them to fill it all in.
My point is this: it’s one thing to give instructions about voting. It’s 100% up to the voter what they actually do with their vote and then the challenge is for the returning officer to determine if the vote is compliant or not. If it is, it gets counted. If not, off into the ether it goes.
So in this body corporate scenario, the returning officer has a defined role according to legislation and made a decision. Whether or not that decision was legal in the circumstances will be up to an adjudicator. And adjudicators tend to not want to alter a decision unless it was close. If in your case, the votes were 70-10 in favour, it’s hardly likely these particular votes would have made any difference. If the votes were 41-39, then that’s a different story and it will be up to the aggrieved party – and any other voters – to argue why their vote was or was not valid in the circumstances. There would need to be a rigorous analysis of the ‘unreliability’ of mail delivery you mention.
There are many variables, as Will has pointed out.
This post appears in Strata News #609.
William Marquand
Tower Body Corporate
E: willmarquand@towerbodycorporate.com.au
P: 07 5609 4924
Chris Irons
Strata Solve
E: chris@stratasolve.com.au
P: 0419 805 898
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