Co-ops, condos seek help with elections - apartment cooperatives and condominiums look for professional management for elections

Real Estate Weekly, Nov 11, 1992

The increased desire for co-ops and condominiums to have professional management for their elections to avoid disputed results, has led to a boom in business for Joyce Miller, president of the Co-op Election Company.

Miller's company is the only one in the New York area which specializes solely in such election management.

Since we began our business, we have increased our assignments by 50 percent per year. The reason is that there is high satisfaction from clients, and more recognition that elections conducted by us with confidentiality and impartiality cut down on the amount of disagreements, disputes and suspicion that might otherwise be involved," Miller observed.

Representatives of The Co-op Election Company are increasingly upon to attend co-op and condo meetings, handle ballot and proxy tabulations, give tallies on the spot, and then follow up within 24 hours with official verified tallies. "The outcome of all this attention is an election free of dispute, feelings of partiality, or controversy," according to Miller. "Since so many elections can caught up in problems it is no wonder that many residential buildings, are seeking such outside help to facilitate the election process."

The Co-op election Company offers its clients full or partial election services including: Getting out the vote, guaranteeing a quorum, collecting proxies before a meeting, writing, printing and distributing ballots, proxies and notices, attending the meeting and collecting ballots and providing an affidavit as the accuracy of the tally.

Miller is a licensed real estate broker and a member of her own building's co-op board.

The Co-op Election Company counts among its clients buildings with thousands of units and those as small as 30 units. Assignments come from many people including building managers, lawyers, board presidents and accountants.

Now in its second year, The Co-op Election Company is an affiliate of Shareholder Communications Corp., a proxy solicitation firm that has been in business for 22 years.