Electronic Voting in HOA Elections: Which States Allow It and How to Run One That Holds Up

Your annual election is eight weeks out. The management company has quoted printing, double envelopes, and first class mail for 240 owners, and last year you still missed quorum and had to adjourn and start over. Someone on the board asks the obvious question: can we just do this online?

Whether your association can use electronic voting depends on which state you are in, then on what your governing documents say, and then on whether you adopt the right rule before ballots go out. Those three checks are the whole job.

Why boards move off paper ballots

Boards switch to electronic voting to fix quorum and cost, not to modernize for its own sake. A mailed secret ballot in a double envelope system asks the owner to mark a ballot, seal it in an unmarked inner envelope, sign the outer envelope, and mail it back before the polls close. Every step can lose a vote, and the most common loss is the simplest: the owner signs the wrong envelope, or forgets to sign, and the ballot cannot be counted.

Online voting takes the mail out and gives you a running count of who has voted while there is still time to call the rest. If turnout is the real problem, voting mechanics are only half of it, and how to increase attendance at your building's meetings covers the other half.

Is electronic voting legal for HOAs in your state?

There is no national rule on electronic voting for community associations, because association elections are governed by state statute and by your own governing documents. The honest answer to "is it legal" is always "in which state."

In Florida, both condominium and homeowners associations may run elections and other owner votes through an internet based online voting system if the owner consents, electronically or in writing, and the board authorizes the system by resolution. The condominium rule is section 718.128 of the Florida Statutes; the homeowners association rule is section 720.317. Two details matter. Consent lasts until the owner opts out, so you do not re-collect it every year. And in a condominium, if at least 25 percent of the voting interests petition the board to adopt an electronic voting resolution for the next election, the board must meet within 21 days of receiving the petition to consider it.

California came late. AB 2159 amended the Davis-Stirling provisions in 2024, and as of January 1, 2025 an association may adopt an election operating rule letting its inspector of elections run an election by electronic secret ballot. The authority sits in Civil Code section 5105, with the security duties in section 5110. One carve out catches boards by surprise: elections regarding regular or special assessments still require a written secret ballot, so a dues vote and a director vote cannot ride on the same online ballot.

Plenty of other states permit electronic voting, and several say nothing at all, which leaves the question to your governing documents. Vendors like to quote a national count of how many states allow it; treat that as marketing, because no primary source publishes the number. Your state statute and your governing documents control, so check both.

What the statutes tend to require anyway

Across states that wrote their rules years apart, the requirements converge on the same problem: a secret ballot you can audit without tracing it back to a person.

• Consent, not conscription. Florida requires the owner to consent before voting online. California requires an opt in or opt out design, and a member changing their method must be able to do so up to 90 days before the election.
• A paper path that still works. If an owner opts out, or you have no email address for them, they get a written ballot. Nobody loses a vote for being offline.
• Identity authentication. The system has to confirm the person voting is the owner of record.
• Secrecy by construction. Where a secret ballot applies, the system must permanently separate identifying information from the ballot, so tying a ballot back to an owner is impossible rather than merely forbidden. In Florida that attaches to board elections, and for a homeowners association only where the bylaws require secret ballots.
• A receipt. The owner gets confirmation that their vote was cast.
• A dry run before the deadline. Florida requires a way for the owner to confirm their device reaches the voting system at least 14 days before the deadline. California requires it at least 30 days out.
• Records you can recount. Electronic ballots must be stored and stay accessible to election officials for recount, inspection, and review.

One requirement solves a problem instead of creating one: in both Florida and California, an owner who votes electronically counts as present for quorum. That is often the single reason a struggling election closes on the first try.

How to actually run one

1. Read your statute and your governing documents side by side. You want two answers: whether the state authorizes electronic voting, and whether your bylaws or CC&Rs set a voting procedure that conflicts with it. Bring counsel in here, not after the notice goes out.
2. Adopt the rule properly. In Florida this is a board resolution covering notice to owners and the procedures and deadlines to consent and to opt out. For a homeowners association, written notice of the meeting considering that resolution goes out at least 14 days ahead, documented by affidavit in the official records. In California it is an election operating rule, and it cannot be amended less than 90 days before an election. Most of this is rulemaking you already have authority for, and the boundary is drawn in what your board can enforce without amending the bylaws.
3. Pick the vendor against the statute, not the demo. Walk the list above and make them show you each item: authentication, no alteration in transit, the receipt, permanent separation of identity from ballot, and the stored record. If a vendor cannot evidence one, the system does not meet your statute however good the interface looks.
4. Appoint your inspector or election officials. California requires an independent third party as inspector, one or three of them, and excludes directors, candidates, anyone related to a director or candidate, and anyone already under contract with the association for other paid services. Your property manager usually cannot serve.
5. Send notice with instructions, not just a date. California requires individual notice 30 days before the election telling each member how to get access to the voting system and how to cast an electronic ballot. Treat that as the floor everywhere: an owner who cannot find the login does not vote.
6. Keep the record. Voter lists, candidate lists, ballots, and the inspector's report are association records, and owners can ask for them later. What you must hand over is covered in HOA records requests.

What gets an online election challenged

Elections get overturned on procedure, almost never on the technology. The challenges that stick usually come from:

• Adopting or amending the election rule inside the statutory window before the election, which hands a losing candidate an argument.
• An owner who opted out, or for whom you had no email address, never receiving a written ballot. That vote was denied.
• Nominations from the floor. In California, an association adopting electronic secret balloting must prohibit them, and boards that keep taking floor nominations out of habit conflict with their own rule.
• A vote changed after the fact. California is explicit that a vote cast by electronic secret ballot cannot be revoked, so check your statute before turning on a vendor feature that lets owners change a vote until the meeting closes.
• Secrecy that is theoretically breakable. If the system can link a ballot to an owner, even internally, you do not have a secret ballot.

Moving the ballot online does not change the meeting it belongs to, and notice and conduct rules still apply. If you are moving the meeting too, virtual and hybrid HOA meetings covers that.

Elections are one night a year, but the owner records, email addresses, and notices they depend on are a year round job. Noque keeps owner contact details, notices, document delivery, and meeting records in one place, so when election season arrives your voter list is already current instead of rebuilt from spreadsheets. To see how that works in your community, talk to a specialist.