Defusing the Volatile Vote Count

With election season upon us, it’s time for a reminder: An accurate vote count may be the single most critical – and volatile – ingredient in your co-op or condo’s annual election of directors.

“The real challenge is how to make things go smoothly when there’s a war going on,” says attorney Thomas Smith, a partner at Smith Buss & Jacobs. “If there’s not a contested election or some kind of hostile election, then it’s fairly easy to make sure everything goes smoothly. The predicament comes when there’s suspicion all around and different factions looking to nudge the process in a way that gives them a small advantage.”

Smart boards use procedures that leave all residents, even the disappointed ones, convinced that the election was run fairly and the votes were counted accurately.

When counting the ballots, you have two choices: you can do it yourself, with the assistance of your lawyer, accountant, or managing agent; or you can have an outside firm handle everything. The second choice is more expensive – it ranges from about $600 in a building where all voting is done online up to $20 per ballot in a “hybrid” building that uses online and paper ballots. The expense buys the peace of mind of having a professional running everything, from soup to nuts, says Linda Gibbs, president of the Honest Ballot Association (HBA), an independent election company that comes in before the election and distributes proxies and later counts the votes.

Boards that decide not to pay an outside company to handle their election must have someone count the votes. “Have a clear procedure for how and especially who is going to be counting the ballots,” advises Dean Roberts, a partner in the law firm Norris McLaughlin & Marcus.

You can choose inspectors of elections from supporters of the different candidates. “If there are three different groups vying for control of the board,” says Smith, the attorney, “then you want three inspectors – one who is trusted or designated by each group.” Roberts agrees: “Those people should not be candidates. If they’re board members, it must be clear they’re not running for re-election and therefore have no skin in the game.”

Pamela Delorme, president of Delkap Management, says her company usually asks for volunteers from the audience to be counters. “We also have people at the election, and our people sit with those volunteers to verify the vote that was cast when we do the tallying,” she says.

“Usually,” says attorney Stuart Saft, a partner at Holland & Knight, “the counting is done by a couple of employees of the management company. Sometimes, when there’s a really contested election and a proxy fight, we’ll call in a company like Honest Ballot Association to run the election.” In contentious elections, he adds, “the lawyers or the accountants will be asked to attend the ballot-counting, to basically do the role of inspectors of election. You really have to have the lawyer watching the entire proceeding. It’s critically important that the vote be held fairly and accurately.”