Last week we were recommending postponing AGMs in accordance with the April 24th Order in Council.
Opponents of electronic voting are scared. Scared that electronic voting is going to expose the archaic and flawed
system of proxy voting for what it is – unnecessary and obsolete. They’re scared because they know that it is largely through proxy voting that some people have been able to maintain and secure their positions for extended periods – giving
them years, sometimes decades, of unchallenged control and all the benefits that come with it.
Much has been written about the newly enacted electronic voting in condos. While it is received by many as a long-overdue solution to the proxy and quorum challenges faced by many corporations, some commentators have hesitated to adopt it, preferring to cling onto the requirement of a proxy to count someone’s presence toward quorum. In this post, I weigh into this debate and answer the ultimate question: what was the point of the province’s forward- thinking changes in accepting electronic voting if it continued to require physical presence or the traditional proxy form.
For those of you that are still not clear as to what electronic voting is or have certain misgivings about the process, then read on……
Firstly, I want to thank the Ministry of Government and Consumer Services for introducing electronic voting for condominium corporations in Ontario. It was in November 2017 that I first learned about electronic voting when I saw that amendments to the Condominium Act included new methods for voting at condominium meetings through the use of technology.