Without a process of certification, there is very little way to know if a proxy is legitimate or fraudulent. It wouldn’t take much for someone with an interest in a certain outcome to identify those who perennially fail to vote and whose non-attendance at the annual meeting is all but certain and to use that information to fraudulently vote on behalf of those members. And if any ballots so produced were cast by mail and sent to CMA, the chances of getting caught doing it are nil. (Continued...)
For those proxies carried by representative homeowners to the Annual Meeting, the proxy holder merely has to verbally request as many ballots from those handing them out as they claim to have. Other than signing one’s own name on the sign-in sheet next to the unit number for which they purportedly hold a proxy, there is no process whereby anyone certifies that the proxies are genuine, used to vote once only or even exist at all.
The GIL By-Laws mandate the ‘certification’ of proxies.
The dictionary defines ‘certified’ as ‘guaranteed; reliably endorsed’.
SOLUTIONS The Blog is pleased to announce that homeowner and former Board member Jennifer Barry will be contributing a series of posts that will explore, among other topics, ways we may repair our election processes to better ensure that the results are broadly perceived as fair and accurate - leading to the restoration of GIL as a community of homeowners that supports both the mission of the Board and our Board members.
First of all, I wanted to take a moment and comment on the sheer volume of content and intelligent discourse that is the Glen Iris Blog. The dedication, commitment and thoughtfulness that inform the blog are a true gift to our community. For me, it reminds me how things come into being, even when only inertia and each of our own, quasi-acceptable levels of self-absorption existed beforehand.
ReplyDeleteI have found the blog to be extremely informative and a testament to how little I have invested of my time or myself in the place I have called home for almost ten years now. I have always believed that our community is comprised of such bright, interesting and unique individuals, and I have always wished there were more venues, within the gates of our community, that allowed us to socialize more, and deepen our connections with one another.
If you don’t own a dog, there is a good chance you might not even know the name of the person who lives across the hall from you.
With the Glen Iris Blog as my inspiration, I have made a commitment to myself and to the community to start a blog where I can detail some recurring, enduring ideas I have had for almost as long as I have called Glen Iris Lofts my home. These ideas center around how we can deepen our sense of community, share a laugh or two with one another and express our identify to the rest of Atlanta.
We live in one of the most urban, hip parts of Atlanta, the large majority of us have no children living with us and we have never taken the time, or exerted the effort (like the creator of the Glen Iris Blog) to introduce new ideas, events, and/or traditions into our collective experience to try and figure out who we are as a community and how best to communicate our identity to the rest of the in town neighborhoods.
So my blog will focus upon the ideas I have for creating events and activities within our community that will give us an opportunity to get to know our fellow homeowners and make the most of this amazing neighborhood we call home.