Don't play loose with election rules, and don't go out of your way to make obtaining proxies difficult. Remember, this is a board election, not Florida 2000.

• Any writing that is signed by the shareholder or unit-owner and indicates who the whom the shareholder or unit-owner wants to vote for, even if it is a faxed copy, is valid. E-mail proxies, however, are not.

• Some boards attempt to limit the form of proxy in order to make it more difficult for dissidents to collect proxies. This is unfair to shareholders or unit-owners who may want to give their proxy to someone but do not have access to the official form. Shareholders and unit-owners should be permitted to use whatever form they want to expressly designate their proxy-holder.

• Some boards attempt to disallow a proxy because the shareholder crossed out the board's designee and voted for a write-in candidate. That is not a legitimate reason to disallow.

• Unless the bylaws state otherwise, the proxy-holder need not be a shareholder or unit-owner.

• If the proxy is signed but does not indicate the name of the proxy-holder, then the proxy is invalid.

• Altering a proxy, even by simply inserting the date at a later time, also invalidates the proxy.

• If a shareholder or unit-owner has signed a proxy but then attends the meeting, his or her ballot vote has priority over his or her proxy. If the person attends but does not vote, and has signed multiple proxies, the most recent proxy has priority over an earlier version.

— Stuart Saft