HOA Voting Rules in Washington

Yes. Washington's WUCIOA (RCW §64.90.455) includes explicit provisions for electronic communication and voting. Communities governed by WUCIOA can conduct elections electronically. Older communities still under the previous Condominium Act or Homeowners' Association Act should check their governing documents.

WUCIOA (RCW Ch. 64.90) took effect July 1, 2018 and applies to communities created on or after that date, plus any community that elects into it. The gap is closing on its own: the Horizontal Property Regimes Act, the Washington Condominium Act and the Homeowners' Association Act were all repealed by 2024 c 321 effective January 1, 2028, and from that date WUCIOA governs every common interest community in the state. Meeting notice already moved: RCW 64.90.445 applies to pre-2018 communities today under RCW 64.90.365(1). So an older community that updates its documents for electronic voting now is doing work it will need anyway.

Under WUCIOA, RCW 64.90.450(1), the default quorum is 20% of the votes in the association, counted from owners attending in person, by proxy, by the remote means RCW 64.90.445(1)(e) or (f) allows, or who have voted by absentee ballot — unless the ORGANIZATIONAL DOCUMENTS provide otherwise. WUCIOA sets no reduced quorum for an adjourned meeting; communities still under RCW 64.38.040 use a 34 percent default until that chapter is repealed on January 1, 2028. Online voting through vote.direct can help achieve quorum by making participation easy for all members.

For WUCIOA communities, electronic voting is explicitly authorized. For older communities, check your governing documents, as you may need a bylaw amendment. Once authorized, adopting vote.direct is straightforward: upload your voter roster, create your ballot, and invite members to vote online with verified identity.

Quorum in Washington: Under WUCIOA, RCW 64.90.450(1), unless the organizational documents provide otherwise, a quorum is present throughout any meeting of the unit owners if at the beginning of the meeting persons entitled to cast 20 percent of the votes in the association attend in person, by proxy, by the remote means allowed under RCW 64.90.445(1)(e) or (f), or have voted by absentee ballot. A board quorum is a majority of the votes on that board (RCW 64.90.450(2)). WUCIOA sets no reduced quorum for an adjourned or reconvened meeting. Communities created before July 1, 2018 that have not opted into WUCIOA still use RCW 64.38.040, where the default is 34 percent present in person or by proxy, until that chapter is repealed on January 1, 2028. 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.

Washington consolidated meeting notice into a single statute. RCW 64.90.445(1) requires an association to provide unit owners notice of the time, date, and place of each annual and special unit owners meeting not less than 14 days and not more than 50 days before the meeting date, by any means described in RCW 64.90.515. That section reaches older communities too: RCW 64.90.365(1) lists 64.90.445 among the WUCIOA sections that apply to common interest communities created before July 1, 2018. The two provisions this page used to cite, RCW 64.34.332 for condominiums and RCW 64.38.035 for homeowners' associations, were repealed by 2025 c 119 §32 effective January 1, 2026, and are no longer law. 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.

Washington allows proxy voting and puts a clock on it. Under WUCIOA, RCW 64.90.455(3), votes allocated to a unit may be cast pursuant to a directed or undirected proxy duly executed by a unit owner; the association must implement reasonable measures to verify the identity of the unit owner and the proxy holder; a proxy is void if it is not dated or purports to be revocable without notice; an owner may revoke it only by actual notice of revocation to the secretary or the person presiding over the meeting; and unless the proxy states otherwise, it terminates 11 months after its date of issuance. Communities still governed by the Homeowners' Association Act get the same rule from RCW 64.38.120, "Voting—In person, absentee ballots, proxies," which carries the identical 11-month default until that chapter is repealed on January 1, 2028. Note that the Washington Nonprofit Corporation Act is now chapter 24.03A RCW, not 24.03. Online voting removes the instrument entirely: each member votes directly with verified identity, so there is no proxy to date, hold, or revoke. 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.