TO START WITH, let’s examine a few key statutory provisions. The Illinois Condominium Property Act (765 ILCS 605/18.8(b) and referred to as the “Condo Act”) provides that “[t]he association, unit owners, and other persons entitled to occupy a unit may perform any obligation or exercise any right under any condominium instrument or any provision of this Act by use of acceptable technological means.” Similarly, the Illinois Common Interest Community Association Act (765 ILCS 160/1-85(b) and referred to as “CICAA”) provides that “[t]he common interest community association, unit owners, and other persons entitled to occupy a unit may perform any obligation or exercise any right under any community instrument or any provision of this Act by use of acceptable technological means.” Both statutes define the term “acceptable technological means” as including “without limitation, electronic transmission over the Internet or other network, whether by direct connection, intranet, telecopier, electronic mail, and any generally available technology that, by rule of the association, is deemed to provide reasonable security, reliability, identification, and verifiability.” (765 ILCS 605/2(z) and 765 ILCS 160/1-5). In other words, any right or obligation that an owner, board member or association has under the association’s governing documents or applicable statute may be accomplished using current technology.
Electronic Voting
Voting electronically is something that a number of associations have explored for the first time in 2020. This could be viewed by an association as a temporary solution used only as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and corresponding federal, state and local orders, guidelines, etc. limiting in-person gatherings and contact. Alternatively, associations could choose to make electronic voting the norm going forward and doing so may have several benefits for the entire community.
The potential benefits in using electronic voting instead of the traditional voting method (in-person paper ballots and proxies) is that electronic voting may be an easier process for some owners to navigate, thereby potentially resulting in greater participation in board elections. With a number of people seemingly living on their smartphones these days, utilizing current technology to adopt electronic voting rules could allow owners to vote on their smartphones (or tablets/computers) without ever having to read or touch a paper ballot or proxy.
Furthermore, if electronic voting is conducted through a third-party electronic voting vendor, where owners log-in to the vendor’s website to cast their votes and the vendor tallies the votes, this could help relieve some of the tension that can exist at meetings when there is a contested election. Rather than having management, the current board members or owners selected by the current board members review paper ballots and proxies and tally votes,
20 | COMMON INTEREST®
electronic voting removes the vote counting process from any individuals who may have a potential or perceived bias, which should be in all owners’ best interests.
Use of Technology to Conduct Meetings
The Illinois General Not for Profit Corporation Act (805 ILCS 105/107.05(d) and 805 ILCS 105/108.15(c)) provides that for associations set up as not-for-profit corporations (which is likely most associations in Illinois) both owner meetings and board meetings may be conducted via conference call or through other technology (i.e. virtual meetings held on
Zoom.com,
Gotomeeting.com, etc.) as long as all of the participants may hear each other and be heard. Conducting meetings through the use of technology does not need to be limited just to those times when there is a worldwide pandemic. Instead, associations could explore conducting their meetings virtually and/or incorporating some aspect of technology into their meetings for all future meetings and doing so could help bring the association residents closer together.
For example, even if an association holds a traditional in- person meeting, the association could also have a virtual aspect to that meeting to allow owners unable to attend the meeting in-person to log-in and attend the meeting virtually if the necessary technical equipment is available. Incorporating this type of virtual aspect to an in-person meeting would allow owners who are home-bound or otherwise physically unable to attend an in-person meeting the opportunity to attend the meeting as well as allow owners who travel for work or otherwise have commitments out of town to attend the meeting. Additionally, this could be a valuable tool when snow, ice and other weather conditions make the prospect of leaving one’s home to travel to a meeting a potentially difficult task. Furthermore, some owners may be uncomfortable speaking up at a meeting in-person if there are other owners with differing opinions sitting just a few feet from them and might feel more comfortable expressing themselves from the comfort of their own homes. Therefore, making use of available technology in this way could lead to a greater percentage of owners attending meetings and participating in the association.
In addition, using available technology could increase the number of owners willing to volunteer their time to serve on association boards. A number of associations have difficulty finding enough owners willing to serve on the board. Making use of available technology to conduct some or all board meetings virtually, or at least making virtual attendance an option for all board meetings, could lead to owners volunteering to serve on boards who might otherwise refrain from doing so if the only option available for attending board meetings is to do so in-person.
• Fall 2020 • A Publication of CAI-Illinois Chapter
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