This article discusses secret ballot committee election AGM rules and when anonymous voting can be used to manage disputes.
Question: We’ve had a year of disagreement and upsets between owners and committee members. At the upcoming AGM, moves may be made to replace committee members. Can voting be kept anonymous?
We’ve had a year of disagreement and upsets between owners and committee members. At the upcoming AGM, moves may be made to replace committee members. Under the current system, voting papers are returned in an envelope showing the lot number of each vote. To keep the meeting as calm as possible and hopefully result in a better outcome, can voting be kept anonymous?
Answer: The Committee could make a decision to hold the upcoming committee election at the AGM by secret ballot if they believe that this will help the smooth running of the scheme.
Under the standard and accommodation modules, the default position of the legislation is that committee elections should be held by secret ballot.
Body Corporates can vote to change this at a general meeting to an open ballot and over the years many (probably most) have done so as usually the committee election is not controversial and the process of running an open ballot is far easier than running a secret ballot.
The logical extension of that process is that if the body corporate wanted to go back to having committee elections by secret ballot, a motion should be passed to at a general meeting approve this.
However, that would require an EGM and in your case maybe there isn’t time to do this before the AGM. It could also be expensive, time consuming and maybe just as controversial as the decisions you have to make at the AGM. On that basis, the Committee could make a decision to hold the upcoming committee election at the AGM by secret ballot if they believe that this will help the smooth running of the scheme.
Obviously, we would advocate and hope that all owners should be entitled to vote freely without any recrimination but we know that real life doesn’t always work that way so maybe a secret ballot is the best option in the circumstances. There is some possibility that this decision could be disputed, but no one is being denied a vote by holding it in secret so it would be hard to say the committee has made an unreasonable decision if there is evidence that the open election was causing sufficient dispute to warrant holding it in secret.
This post appears in Strata News #632.
William Marquand
Tower Body Corporate
E: willmarquand@towerbodycorporate.com.au
P: 07 5609 4924
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