HOA Voting Rules in Maryland

Yes. Md. Real Property Code §11B-113.2 lets the board of directors authorize lot owners to submit a vote or proxy by electronic transmission, notwithstanding anything in the governing documents, if the transmission contains information verifying that the owner or the owner's proxy authorized it; §11-139.2 does the same for condominiums. Individual member consent is not required to vote electronically — that requirement belongs to electronic delivery of meeting notices under §11B-113.1 and §11-139.1. Where the governing documents require a secret ballot and anonymity cannot be guaranteed electronically, electronic voting is still permitted so long as owners have the option of casting anonymous printed ballots. Since October 1, 2025, Md. Real Property §11B-118 also requires the election itself to be conducted by independent parties, and expressly allows the association to retain a third-party vendor or a commercial technology platform like vote.direct.

Md. Real Property §11B-118, effective October 1, 2025, requires elections for the governing body of a homeowners association — including the collection and counting of ballots and the certifying of results — to be conducted by independent parties who are not candidates and have no conflict of interest, and it allows the association to retain a third-party vendor or commercial technology platform to run the election. Section §11B-111 separately requires open meetings, reasonable notice of regularly scheduled meetings, and a second-meeting procedure when the first fails for want of a quorum. Condominiums get nomination mechanics as well: under §11-109(c)(13) a call for nominations goes out not less than 45 days before the election notice, nominations made at least 15 days before that notice are listed on the ballot, and candidates appear in alphabetical order with no indicated preference. Associations must follow both the statute and their governing documents.

The Maryland Condominium Act (Md. Real Property Code §11-101 et seq.) provides governance rules for condominiums: §11-109(c)(4) for the 10-to-90-day meeting notice, §11-109(c)(8) for the 25 percent default quorum and the reduced-quorum second meeting, §11-109(c)(9)-(12) for the 180-day proxy cap and the limits on proxies in director elections, §11-109(c)(13) for nominations, and §11-109(c)(17)-(22) for the independent conduct of elections since October 1, 2025. Condominium associations must comply with both the Condominium Act and their declaration and bylaws.

Yes. Under Md. Real Property Code §11B-113.2, the board may authorize lot owners to submit a vote or proxy by electronic transmission where the transmission verifies the owner authorized it. Since October 1, 2025, Md. Real Property §11B-118 further requires the election to be conducted by independent parties, and expressly allows the association to retain a third-party vendor or employ a commercial technology platform. vote.direct is such a platform.

The bill that became law was SB 758, Chapter 512 of the Acts of 2025 — the cross-filed HB 1534 passed the House with amendments but never both chambers. Effective October 1, 2025, it codified Md. Real Property §11B-118 for homeowners associations and §11-109(c)(17)-(22) for condominiums: elections for the governing body, including collecting and counting ballots and certifying results, must be conducted by independent parties who are not candidates in that election and have no conflict of interest regarding any candidate. Representatives of the association's property management are not independent unless the association owns the management company. A lot owner can qualify — including a sitting director who is not a candidate — provided they do not electioneer and are not objected to by more than 25 percent of the eligible voting members. The association may also retain a third-party vendor or employ a commercial technology platform. The statute does not impose platform requirements for voter identity, anonymity or audit trails; those come from §11B-113.2 and your governing documents.

Md. Real Property §11B-118(a)(2)(iii) expressly allows an association to retain a third-party vendor or employ a commercial technology platform to conduct the election: (1) vote.direct is an independent third party, not your management company or board. (2) Verifiable voter identity: email and SMS verification included, plus government ID verification ($3.00/voter add-on) through an assisted government-ID check. (3) Anonymity: individual votes stay private from your board, candidates, and other members. (4) Audit-friendly results: complete audit trail with timestamps, verification records, and exportable PDF/CSV reports.

Three tiers to match your election's needs: Email verification (included) confirms the voter's email matches your membership roster. Phone/SMS verification (included) sends a one-time code to the voter's phone. Government ID verification ($3.00/voter add-on) uses an assisted government-ID check to scan and validate a government-issued ID (driver's license or passport). Maryland statute does not mandate any of these, so they are a defensibility choice rather than a compliance requirement, and they make vote.direct well suited to contested elections under Maryland law.

Quorum in Maryland: For condominiums, Md. Real Property §11-109(c)(8)(i) sets a default quorum of 25 percent of the total votes appurtenant to all units, present in person or by proxy, unless the bylaws provide otherwise. The Homeowners Association Act sets no default percentage, so an HOA takes its quorum from its bylaws. Both acts then supply the same rescue when a meeting fails for want of a quorum: a second meeting for the same purpose may be called not less than 15 days later, and at that second meeting the owners present in person or by proxy are the quorum — but only if the notice of the first meeting said the procedure might be invoked and gave the date, time and place of the second, and a separate notice went out not less than 10 days beforehand by delivery, mail, electronic transmission, newspaper advertisement or a post on the association's homepage. See §11-109(c)(8)(ii)-(v) for condominiums and §11B-111(6) for homeowners associations. Neither procedure changes the percentage of votes needed to amend the declaration or bylaws. If a vote falls short, most bylaws allow the meeting to be adjourned and reconvened, often at a reduced threshold on the second attempt. Check your declaration for the exact procedure, because the fallback rule is usually in your governing documents rather than in statute. Online voting is the most direct fix: members vote from a phone or laptop instead of attending in person, and Vote.Direct tracks quorum progress live and reminds the members who haven't voted yet.

Under the Maryland Homeowners Association Act, §11B-111(2), all members must be given reasonable notice of all regularly scheduled open meetings — the Act sets no day count. For condominiums, Md. Real Property §11-109(c)(4) is specific: a regular or special meeting of the council of unit owners may not be held on less than 10 nor more than 90 days' written notice delivered or mailed to each unit owner at the address shown on the roster, or notice sent by electronic transmission if the requirements of §11-139.1 are met. Electronic notice requires three things: the board authorizes it, the owner gives prior written authorization, and an officer or agent certifies in writing that notice was sent as authorized. The homeowners association equivalent is §11B-113.1. Your governing documents can require more notice than the statutory floor, never less. Count the notice window backwards from your meeting date before you open voting, and keep a copy of the notice and its delivery date with the election record.

Maryland caps condominium proxies by statute. Md. Real Property §11-109(c)(9) provides that unit owners may vote by proxy, but the proxy is effective only for a maximum period of 180 days following its issuance, unless granted to a lessee or mortgagee, and §11-109(c)(10) makes any proxy revocable at any time at the owner's pleasure. Board elections are narrower still: an undirected proxy may only be used for meeting quorum and for business other than an election of officers and directors (§11-109(c)(11)), and only an owner voting in person, an owner voting by electronic transmission under §11-139.2, or a proxy voting for candidates the owner designated may vote for directors (§11-109(c)(12)). The Maryland Homeowners Association Act contains no proxy section at all, so an HOA's proxy rules come from its governing documents and, if it is incorporated, from the Corporations and Associations Article, where a proxy is not valid more than 11 months after its date unless it provides otherwise (§2-507(b)(2)). Both regimes let the board authorize a vote or proxy submitted by electronic transmission if the transmission verifies that the owner authorized it — §11-139.2 for condominiums, §11B-113.2 for HOAs. Proxies exist mainly to solve an attendance problem. When members can cast a verified ballot online during a multi-day voting window, most communities find proxy use drops sharply, along with the disputes about whether a given proxy was valid.