We were fortunate to learn the incorrect vote results of the proposed amendment to the covenants and restrictions.
They gave a clearer picture of the magnitude of opposition among property owners.
The results that were announced at the annual meeting Sept. 19 showed there were 3,341 votes against the proposal to 662 for it. But the company that tallied the votes erred in assigning only one vote per ballot rather than tabulating all of the votes each property owner actually had cast.
In community club elections, property owners cast their votes based on the number of lots they own. A property owner with three lots, for example, casts three votes.
Those initial results revealed the number of property owners who voted on the issue, not their total votes. So, to continue with our example, the property owner with three lots was recorded having cast only one vote.
That means 3,341 property owners, or 83.4% of them, voted against the initiative compared with 662, or 16.6%, who voted for it. That is astounding.
The corrected figures also showed a rout, although a lesser but still convincing one, with those 3,341 property owners casting 4,329 votes against it, and 662 casting 2,514 for it. (Wyndham cast its 1,241 votes in favor.)
With 63.2% votes against it and 36.8% for it, that, in election terminology, is a landslide victory for the opponents.
The margin of victory is even more significant considering that 49.4% of eligible property owners voted. That is unusual in itself.
But do the votes of the 49.4% represent the sentiments of the other 50.6% who did not vote? We don’t know for sure their reasons for not voting, but we do know there is voter apathy. Those who didn’t care to vote might not be represented by either side.
Regardless, the results suggest the amendment proposal would have failed even if every eligible property owner had voted. The trend of the landslide had been set.
And if it weren’t for those faulty original numbers being released, we would not have known that slightly more than four out of every five property owners who voted did not want the amendment.
That was the big takeaway in this nearly yearlong issue for me.