Condo directors are elected at a meeting of owners, usually the Annual General Meeting (AGM). (Under certain circumstances, directors may be appointed instead of elected, which we will explore more on this in a future article.)
Anyone who meets the qualifications of being a director and is interested in running for a position on the Board of Director is a candidate.
The Condominium Act [Note 1] says that when someone notifies the Board (yes, the Board, but may be via the Management Office) in writing of his/her such intention, his/her name and address (yes, address, too) should be included in the AGM package. Since it takes time to prepare the AGM package, the deadline for the notification should be at least four days before the AGM package is sent.
The Act does not stipulate that this the only way for people to announce their candidacy. As long as the by-laws do not restrict, interested people can still send in their intention after the deadline, only that their intentions are not made known via the AGM package. Also, at the AGM (or meeting of owners), people can also nominate themselves or other people to be candidates.
At the AGM (or meeting of owners), owners – and only owners – may cast votes for any directors. For example, if there are two vacancies in the Board, each owner may vote for two candidates; they may also vote for just one candidate.
An owner may cast his/her vote by ballots in person at the meeting, or by signed proxy.
Like any federal, provincial, or municipal elections in Canada, the candidate who gets the most number of votes wins – this number does not have to be majority, i.e., more than 50%.
In a Canadian election candidates always win by plurality, not by majority. That is, it only matters who has the most number of votes, it does not matter whether this number is more than 50% of the votes. This also applies to election of condominium corporation directors.
Again, like any federal, provincial, or municipal elections in Canada, an owner can either vote for a certain candidate, or not vote for this candidate. An owner cannot vote against a particular candidate if he/she does not like this candidate – there is no negative vote.
When there is only one candidate for a vacant position, the candidate will be elected by acclamation.
Let's look at the following scenario:
Assuming that there is only one candidate for a certain vacant position, but every voter hates this person and does not want him/her to be elected, and so no one has voted for this candidate. Since no one can vote against him/her, this candidate only needs to cast his/her vote for himself/herself. He/She then receives the most number of votes (i.e., one vote), and he/she will then be duly elected.
This is the rationale behind "elected by acclamation". There are some subtle gotcha in this "elected by acclamation", which we shall return in a future article.
[Note 1] Condominium Act 1998, Section 28, Subsection 2:
The notice of a meeting to elect one or more directors shall include the name and address of each individual who has notified the board in writing of the intention to be a candidate in the election as of the fourth day before the notice is sent.
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