We have our own election rules
Jamacha Greens has its own Rules for Elections and Voting, adopted to comply with SB 323, and they are worth reading in full. What follows is how they work in practice.
The 2026 election has a result
The annual meeting was held by Zoom on September 17, 2026 and did not reach quorum: the Inspector of Elections announced 49 ballots returned against the 98 the Bylaws require (51% of 192 is 97.92), so the ballots were not opened and the meeting was adjourned. It reconvened on Thursday, October 15, 2026, by Zoom, where Civil Code § 5115(d)(2) sets quorum at 20% of the members — 20% of 192 is 38.4, so 39.
The Inspector announced 55 ballots returned, so quorum was met and the ballots were opened and counted on the call. Each ballot carried five votes, which a member could give all to one candidate, so a candidate’s total can exceed the number of ballots:
- Jan Furstenfeld, 142 votes, and Lori Barker, 60 votes, announced as elected to three-year terms.
- Greg Atherton, 28 votes, announced as elected to a two-year term.
- Tricia Halsema, 22 votes, void: the Inspector had said on September 17 that votes for her would not be counted, because she no longer owns a unit here.
- The tax resolution on the same ballot passed 48 yes to 3 no, with 4 abstentions.
That fills three of the five seats. At the board meeting that followed, the board said the two left open — one for two years, one for one — will be filled by appointment at its next meeting, on November 19, 2026, and management said it would email owners to ask who is interested. The full record, round by round, with the candidates’ own statements, is at the 2026 election record.
The terms read out — two seats for three years, then a two-year seat and a one-year seat left open — follow the Bylaws’ stagger rather than the election notice, which put no seat on a three-year term; see the three documents that disagreed.
These figures are as announced at the meeting and written down by an owner who was there. The Inspector’s written report has not been distributed yet; when it is, it governs.
The Board appointed HOA Elect CA, LLC as independent Inspector of Elections, which Civil Code § 5110 requires — support@hoaelectca.com, or 855-701-VOTE.
If your ballot never arrived
Election Rules § 3.4 covers exactly this, and it runs through the Inspector alone — a board member cannot hand you a ballot.
- Ask the Inspector in writing, and include a signed statement that the original ballot was lost, destroyed or never received. The rule requires the statement before a replacement issues, so sending it with the request saves a round trip.
- Bought your unit recently? The envelope may still be addressed to the previous owner, because the voter list has not caught up — and the Inspector verifies your return-envelope signature against that list. Membership, and the vote with it, transfers automatically with title (Bylaws Art. II § 1), so report the error, include a copy of your recorded deed, and ask to confirm the member information they hold for you. Election Rules § 6.2.2 has corrections made within two business days of your report.
- If the original turns up later, vote only one ballot. Under § 3.4, a member who votes twice — even by mistake — has neither ballot counted.
A replacement ballot is under the same deadline as any other: it must reach the Inspector before the polls close, and it may be handed to the Inspector rather than mailed (Election Rules § 7.1.5).
Sources: Rules for Elections and Voting §§ 3.4, 3.6, 6.2.1–6.2.2, 7.1.5; Bylaws Art. II §§ 1–3; Civil Code § 5115(d), read on leginfo September 17, 2026; Notice of Annual Meeting & Election of Directors, HOA Elect CA, for September 17, 2026; the Inspector of Elections' announcements at that meeting and at the reconvened meeting of October 15, 2026, as recorded in an owner's contemporaneous notes; Notice of Annual Meeting and Election, HOA Elect CA, for the December 3, 2025 meeting.
Five seats, four candidates
All five seats are on this ballot. Four members were nominated by the June 28 deadline: Greg Atherton, Lori Barker, Jan Furstenfeld and Tricia Halsema.
Five owners stood for these same five seats in December 2025 — Lori Barker, Ambert Fish-Madison, Jan Furstenfeld, Tricia Halsema and Alan Kana — and three of them are on this ballot again.
With fewer candidates than seats, and one candidate’s votes void, two seats were not filled by the election. They fall to the Board to appoint under Bylaws Art. IV § 7 — the same route by which two directors joined in 2025 — and the board has said it will do so on November 19, 2026. An owner interested in serving does not need to wait for the 2027 nomination window to say so.
Returning your ballot is the whole ballgame
Quorum decides whether this election happens at all, and the number is 98 ballots.
The Bylaws do not state that number in plain English, so here is the arithmetic. Bylaws Art. II § 3 sets quorum at a “majority of owners”, and Bylaws Art. II § 2 defines that term as “those owners holding 51% of the votes then entitled to vote.” Not a majority in the ordinary sense — 51%. With 192 members entitled to vote, 51% of 192 is 97.92, so it takes 98.
It has already failed once:
“I determined that a quorum of members was not reached either by presence in person or by absentee ballot. I received a total of 51 valid ballot return envelopes. Due to lack of quorum, the meeting was adjourned until the next Annual Meeting, the ballots were not opened, and the current Directors will remain in place until the Director’s successor is elected.”
That is the Inspector of Election’s certified report for the meeting held February 15, 2024, with 192 members entitled to vote. Fifty-one ballots came back — 26.6% — and none of them were opened.
One more number belongs beside that one. The Association’s own resident directory, read September 17, 2026, puts the largest single holding here at 18 units: 18 of 192 is 9.4% of the membership, and 18 of 51 is 35.3% of the ballots that came back in 2024. Who holds the votes has the rest of the arithmetic.
Hold that figure against the rule. Civil Code § 5115 lets a properly noticed reconvened election meeting proceed on a quorum of 20% of the votes, and this year’s notice says the Board may use it. A 26.6% return would clear that bar. The 2024 meeting was adjourned instead, and the next election noticed with a ballot was twenty-one months later.
Sources: Bylaws Art. II §§ 2 and 3; Notice of Annual Meeting & Election of Directors, HOA Elect CA; Report of Inspectors of Election, Lisa Schwartz, February 15, 2024; Jamacha Greens Resident Directory, provided by Pernicano Realty & Management on its owner portal, read September 14, 2026.
A ballot you leave blank still counts
Quorum turns on ballots arriving, not on what is written inside them. Civil Code § 5115 puts it plainly:
“If a quorum is required by the governing documents, each ballot received…shall be treated as a member present at a meeting for purposes of establishing a quorum.”
Received. Not marked, not cast for a candidate — received. The statute attaches no condition about how the ballot inside is filled in.
That matters when there are fewer candidates than seats. If you do not want to put your vote behind any of the four, sending the ballot back unmarked is not a wasted gesture and it endorses nobody. It is what decides whether the ballots get opened at all.
Two things to keep right if you do that:
- The outer envelope still has to be signed, with your name and unit. That is what lets the Inspector confirm you are a member entitled to vote. An unsigned envelope cannot be counted toward anything.
- Leave the ballot itself unmarked rather than writing on it. Quorum turns on receipt either way, but a ballot marked in a way the Inspector cannot interpret invites an argument that is not worth having.
If quorum falls short on the night
Adjourning the meeting is not the board’s call alone. Bylaws Art. III § 6 puts that power in the owners’ hands:
“If any meeting of owners is unable to conduct business because a quorum is not present, then the owners who are present at such meeting, either in person or by proxy, shall have the power to call another meeting at a time not less than 48 hours from the time the meeting in question was called.”
Corporations Code § 7512(d) says the same thing: without a quorum, a members’ meeting “may be adjourned from time to time by the vote of a majority of the votes represented” — the members present, not the directors.
The new date has a window on both sides. Civil Code § 5115(d) requires a reconvened election meeting to sit at least 20 days later, and Corporations Code § 7511(d) provides that “No meeting may be adjourned for more than 45 days.” From September 17 that is October 7 through November 1. The Bylaws’ own floor of 48 hours does not govern an election: § 5115(d) will not let a reconvened election meeting sit sooner than 20 days, and the stricter rule is the one that binds.
The association then gives the 15-day notice that carries the 20% quorum, and every ballot already in the Inspector’s hands still counts toward it. That is not an inference: § 5115(d)(3)(C) requires the notice itself to state “that the ballots will be counted if a quorum is reached.” Nothing is returned and nothing is voted twice — once the Inspector has a ballot, Civil Code § 5120 makes it irrevocable.
You are entitled to be heard while that happens. Civil Code § 5000 requires meetings of the membership to run on “a recognized system of parliamentary procedure” — which is what makes a motion from the floor available at all — and provides that “the board shall permit any member to speak at any meeting of the membership of the association.” Since the meeting is on Zoom, ask in writing beforehand how a member obtains the floor, and put any motion in the chat as well so it is on the record either way.
One thing worth asking the Inspector
Three documents state the terms for these five seats. The odd one out is this year’s notice.
| Document | Terms it states | Matches Bylaws Art. IV § 6? |
|---|---|---|
| Notice of Annual Meeting, December 3, 2025 | two seats for three years, two for two, one for one | Yes — this is § 6’s stagger exactly |
| Candidate Nomination Form, 2026 | two seats for three years, two for two, one for one | Yes — the same stagger again |
| Notice of Annual Meeting, September 17, 2026 | three seats for two years, two seats for one year | No — and it puts no seat on a three-year term |
All three say the election is “in accordance with the Bylaws,” and HOA Elect CA prepared both notices. The December 2025 sentence is malformed where it should name the first group’s term — it reads “for a term of TWO (2) to a term of THREE (3) years, TWO (2) for a term of TWO (2) years and ONE for a term of ONE (1) year year(s)” — but its three groups add up to the five directors the same sentence says are to be elected, on terms of three, two and one years. That is § 6.
All five seats being up at once is not itself odd. Art. IV § 6 sets the stagger at the first annual meeting and gives every successor a three-year term, so a board on schedule elects one or two seats a year rather than the whole board. Ours is not on schedule — the 2024 meeting failed for quorum and two seats were filled by appointment in 2025 — so the stagger is being restarted, which is what the nomination form’s split does.
Which terms are actually on the ballot decides when each seat next comes up. Under the notice’s version the longest term is two years; under the Bylaws’, two seats run three. That is a fair question to put to the Inspector of Elections before ballots are counted.
It was answered on October 15, 2026, at least as read out on the call: two seats for three years, and the rest for two and one, which is the Bylaws’ stagger and the nomination form’s, not the September notice’s. The written report, when it is distributed, is what settles it.
Sources: Bylaws Art. IV § 6; Notice of Annual Meeting and Election, HOA Elect CA, for the December 3, 2025 meeting; Notice of Annual Meeting & Election of Directors, HOA Elect CA, for the September 17, 2026 meeting; Board of Directors Candidate Nomination Form, election of directors September 17, 2026; Report of Inspectors of Election, Lisa Schwartz, February 15, 2024; Regular Session Minutes, October 23, 2025, for the two appointments.
When the annual meeting is supposed to be
Three of our own documents give three different answers.
| Source | What it says |
|---|---|
| Bylaws Art. III § 3 (1971) | “the annual meetings of the Association shall be held on the second Wednesday of September each succeeding year” |
| Rules and Regulations, page 5 (2011) | “Annual Association Meetings although subject to change, are held on the third (3rd) Thursday of August each year” |
| 2025 notice | Wednesday, December 3, 2025 |
| 2026 notice | Thursday, September 17, 2026 |
The Bylaws control. Civil Code § 4205 ranks the governing documents — law first, then the Declaration, then the Articles of Incorporation, then the Bylaws, then the operating rules. The Rules and Regulations are operating rules, so where the two conflict the Bylaws prevail and the September date is the operative one.
In practice the date has moved around. The second Wednesday of September 2026 was the 9th; the meeting is the 17th. The meeting for the 2023 election year was held on February 15, 2024. The 2025 meeting was noticed to members for December 3 — a Wednesday, which is the weekday Art. III § 3 asks for, in the wrong month by nearly three.
If a meeting is not held at all
Corporations Code § 7510(b) requires the regular meeting to be held on the date “stated in or fixed in accordance with the bylaws,” in any year in which directors are to be elected.
If it is not, § 7510(c) gives a member a remedy. Where a corporation “fails to hold the regular meeting for a period of 60 days after the date designated therefor,” the superior court “may summarily order the meeting to be held” on the application of a member or the Attorney General. Sixty days after the second Wednesday of September falls in the second week of November.
That gets a meeting held; it does not get you a different board. But it exists, and it belongs to any owner who wants to use it.
Sources: Bylaws Art. III § 3; Rules and Regulations, page 5; Notice of Annual Meeting and Election, HOA Elect CA, for the December 3, 2025 meeting; Notice of Annual Meeting & Election of Directors, HOA Elect CA, for September 17, 2026; Report of Inspectors of Election, February 15, 2024; Regular Session Minutes, July 17, 2025.
The basic machinery
- Secret ballot is mandatory for electing directors, amending governing documents, votes on assessments, and grants of exclusive use of common area (Election Rules § 5.1; Civil Code § 5100).
- An independent inspector of elections must run the vote. Our Election Rules § 4.1 expressly bar the association’s current management company and its attorneys from serving in that role.
- Ballots are mailed at least 30 days before the meeting, along with a copy of the election rules (Election Rules § 4.1.1(i)).
- Ballots are counted in public, at a properly noticed open meeting, and any member may witness the count (Election Rules § 8.1; Civil Code § 5120).
- Results must be publicized to all members within 15 days (Election Rules § 8.2).
- Association funds may not be used for campaign purposes (Election Rules § 10.1; Civil Code § 5135).
Who can run
Under Election Rules § 2.2.4, any member may nominate themselves, so long as they qualify under § 2.1.1 and are not disqualified under § 2.1.2. Those disqualifying grounds are specific and closed — most notably being delinquent on assessments, having been a member for less than one year, or a joint owner already serving.
Importantly, § 2.1.2(a) says a member is not disqualified for delinquency if they have paid under protest (Civil Code § 5658), entered a payment plan (§ 5665), or requested internal dispute resolution.
The acclamation shortcut
Civil Code § 5103 permits a board to seat candidates by acclamation, without mailing ballots, when the number of qualified candidates is at or below the number of open seats at the close of nominations.
It is not automatic. The statute says a board may seat by acclamation, and only where every one of these has already happened:
- The association held a regular election for directors in the last three years.
- Individual notice of the nomination procedure went out at least 90 days before the nomination deadline, stating that acclamation may follow if nominations do not exceed the vacancies.
- A reminder notice went out between 7 and 30 days before that deadline, listing the candidates qualified so far.
- Each nomination was acknowledged, and each nominee told whether they qualified, within seven business days.
- The board voted in an open meeting to seat them, with each candidate named on the agenda.
Miss any of those and the shortcut is not available, whatever the candidate count.
Acclamation is not improper in itself — it saves the association the real cost of running an election. But its practical effect is that an uncontested seat is not really an election at all. The only way to force a full secret-ballot election is for more qualified candidates to run than there are open seats.
A board that is running a ballot has not used the shortcut. If ballots were mailed, the election is a secret-ballot election under § 5100 and the quorum rules apply to it — the candidates are not seated regardless of turnout.
What has actually happened here
The board’s own minutes record the consequence of an uncontested field. From the January 16, 2025 regular session minutes:
“The Board discussed the recent cancellation of the annual meeting due to no applicants sending in candidacy forms causing the meeting to stop its process.”
No candidates came forward, so there was no election. Vacancies were then filled by the sitting board under Bylaws Article IV, Section 7, which lets remaining directors appoint replacements by majority vote.
The minutes show this happening twice in 2025:
- May 22, 2025 — Georgia Taylor appointed director at large for the remainder of an open term.
- June 26, 2025 — Greg Atherton appointed to the board.
Both appointments were lawful under the Bylaws. Both also mean that two of five current directors reached the board without ever appearing on a ballot.
Contesting an election
Civil Code § 5145 lets a member sue for declaratory or equitable relief within one year of the results being announced. If the member shows by a preponderance of the evidence that election procedures were not followed, the court must void the results unless the association proves the noncompliance did not affect the outcome. A prevailing member is entitled to costs and reasonable attorney’s fees, and the court may impose a civil penalty of up to $500 per violation.
Last reviewed October 1, 2026