Scallywag said……

– The new Regulations DO allow electronic voting before a meeting on matters  “not being an election”.   In other words, Pre Meeting (electronic) voting excludes voting for any nominees for Committee.

– In QLD the Election of Committee is placed on the Agenda, owners pre-nominate and ALL OWNERS have an equal opportunity to vote for members of the Strata Committee.    Owners at the meeting can also nominate if there are vacancies ….

As I interpret the new NSW Regulation the “not being an election” provision to which you refer relates only to postal voting, but not to pre-meeting electronic voting (including by the use of a website) under the provisions of Clause 15.

Similarly, it appears to me that the pre-nomination provisions at Clause 9 of the NSW Regulation mirror those applicable in Queensland, where I agree with you that any nominations made at a General Meeting itself may only be voted upon by those personally present there and/or holding a proxy.

I’ve agreed with Scallywag (post #1) about the potential for those voting  electronically at General Meetings to be disenfranchised to the extent that they would not be able to cast a vote for persons who are properly nominated for election to the Strata Committee at the physical meeting (as opposed to for those who nominate prior to the electronic distribution of the Agenda), but as it would be unusual for the numbers of nominees to exceed the numbers of Strata Committee Members decided upon at the Meeting, a ballot would be in most circumstances unnecessary.

Still and all there appears to be a conflict in the Regulation between the  procedures for electronically electing pre-nominated candidates to the Strata Committee and for electing those who are later nominated at the physical Meeting of the Owners Corporation.

Is it too late for you to seek some clarification from your contacts in the Minister’s Office Jimmy?

In a nutshell, you can’t vote for your committee by postal vote, emails or on a website.  However, you can vote by “live” telecommunication methods if you are effectively “present” at the meeting via Skype, telephone or teleconferencing:

The following is from a Fair Trading spokesperson:

Postal voting is not included as a means of voting for owners corporations or strata committees. In addition, pre-meeting electronic voting cannot be conducted for the election of members of the strata committee by the owners corporation. The reason for this is that clause 9 (1) (b) of the Strata Schemes Management Regulation 2016 permits the chairperson to call for nominations of candidates for election by the owners corporation at the meeting. If pre-meeting electronic voting was permitted, anyone nominated at the meeting would be excluded.

Clause 10 of the Regulation sets out the procedure to be followed for the election of the members of the strata committee for schemes comprising more than 2 lots. If a ballot is required (the number of persons nominated being greater than the number of positions on the committee), then the chairperson provides each person present and entitled to vote with a blank piece of paper. The voter is required to write the name of the persons they wish to vote for, and include other information, including the capacity in which the voter is exercising their right to vote.

Clause 14 (1) (a) allows owners corporations to permit voting by means of teleconference, video-conferencing, email or other electronic means for members of the owners corporation who may be in remote locations whilst participating in the meeting whilst it is being held. In these circumstances they may vote for members of the committee, as they would be made aware of nominations (and be able to nominate), for membership of the committee.

I agree.  This could be fixed by a tweak of the regulations that said, where electronic voting was to be employed, the EC could set for a closing date for nominations of 14 days prior to the AGM, provided all owners were informed of this, say, 28 days before the AGM.  Can’t see much wrong with that.