Are online and pre-votes the new proxy farming?

We have seen how unscrupulous strata committees have used Pre-Meeting voting to assist in getting their favoured motions approved with a minimum of explanation and opposition.

Ain’t this the truth… This whole concept of pre-meeting voting needs to be outlawed. Example – our holiday apartments have a Letting Manager who also happens to be the Caretaker and, by virtue of the fact that he owns an apartment in the complex, is also on the Strata Committee. When guests make a booking at the complex, he gets to decide which apartment they are provided and that apartment gets the revenue. So, when he wants something passed at a meeting (like extending his letting agreement), he simply organises that to be done via pre-meeting votes and then contacts all the owners to ‘suggest’ they vote in favour. You get the picture here. If they don’t vote in favour, think that there might just be a chance that their apartment might not get an appropriate share of the guest rentals? – damm right… So, the owners approach is – don’t poke the bear. In the old days he used proxies now it’s pre-meeting votes – same/same.