R.S. from Hartford County, Connecticut writes:
Dear Mister Condo,
Our association sent out an inquiry for anyone interested in being a director and a due date. It also said that after that date, nomination forms would be sent out. We received a form to vote and it did not include me as a candidate. I had expressed interest two times by the date needed, and nomination forms were never sent out. There is no way to write in a candidate on electronic form, and there will be not taking a nomination on the floor at the actual meeting. They said they never saw my email response; however, even though they have it, they also did not send out formal nomination forms they said they would. I don’t see I could be appointed after the election, in that there wouldn’t be any vacancy. I don’t feel this is right. With all your experience, have you heard of this? The current board directors (staggered terms) running wouldn’t want to add me as an additional candidate, their positions are up for grabs and I don’t think they would want to compete with me.
Mister Condo replies:
R.S., denying you the opportunity to run for your Board is a serious matter for your condo association Board. As long as you are a qualified member of the association in good standing, you have the right to run for the Board. Without knowing the specifics of how nominations work other than your cursory description here, I would say you have a case for challenging the election and the results. There may be more to it than that but unless you didn’t follow the procedures properly, it sounds like you made a valid nomination that was either ignored or misplaced by whoever was responsible for preparing the election ballot. The real question here is whether or not it is worth your time and effort to challenge the election. I am not an attorney and offer no legal advice in this column but unless the Board sees it your way and is willing to set aside the results of the election and offer a new election your only other options may be to either wait until the next election cycle or sue the Board for violating the election rules. If it were me, I think I would wait until the next election cycle as a lawsuit can be costly in time and money and really doesn’t make you more desirable as a candidate. All the best!