Hello John,

The AGM, as interesting and colorful as it was, showed several deficiencies that need to be addressed.

a) As you mentioned, several proxy votes were rejected/returned because some did not understand that all listed owners of the property must sign it.

To avoid any potential of abuse or misinterpretation, it would be good to add a short reminder about it in the Notes area of the proxy paper.

That way, if a property is held in multiple names, owners know all of them must sign it.

b) How owners vote if there are more than number of members of the executive committee decided (nine in our case)?

Here is what the law says:

QUOTE  
Strata Schemes Management Regulation 2010

18 Ballot for executive committee 
(1) If a ballot for membership of the executive committee of an owners
corporation is required, the chairperson must: 
(a) announce to the meeting the name of each candidate and the nominator
of the candidate, and
(b) provide each person present and entitled to vote at the meeting with
a blank ballot-paper for each vote the person is entitled to cast.
(2) For a vote to be valid, a ballot-paper must be signed by the voter
and completed by the voter's writing on it: 
(a) the names of the candidates (without repeating a name) for whom the
voter desires to vote, the number of names written being no more than
the number determined by the owners corporation as the number of members
of the executive committee, and
(b) the capacity in which the voter is exercising a right to vote,
whether: 
(i) as owner, first mortgagee or covenant chargee of a lot (identifying
the lot), or
(ii) as a company nominee, or
(iii) by proxy, and
(c) if the vote is being cast by proxy--the name and capacity of the
person who gave the proxy.
(3) The completed ballot-paper must be returned to the chairperson.
...
END QUOTE

This tells me that there is no minimum number of candidates an owner can select in the ballot. In other words, owner, seemingly, has the right to select only one of, say, 20 candidates if they do not wish to vote for more.

I looked up various legal databases and could not find any record that conflicts with my interpretation of the clause above.

What do you think? If I am right, body corporate needs to be aware of them in the future.