Creative Enveloping

We recently voted for HOA board members. It ended up being rather difficult.

The night before the vote we complete our ballot. I followed what I thought were the appropriate directions. The ballot needed to go inside the "Secret Ballot" envelope. Then the "Secret Ballot" envelope had to go inside the "Second Envelope." The "Second Envelope" that I received was a plain envelope with some green highlighter around the edges and a number "59" written in blue ink in the corner. It seemed like my vote had been labeled and wouldn't be very anonymous. We even had a short discussion on the oddity of it all.

It took several tries to actually submit our votes.

Attempt #1 - P&AF brought the envelope down to the HOA office at 3:30 p.m., when it opened. He read a sign that the office wouldn't be opening until 4:30 p.m.

Attempt #2 - P&AF brought the envelope down to the HOA office at 4:30 p.m. He was told by the office manager that she could not accept the ballot. He would have to bring it down to the office at 6:30 pm. and hand it directly to a board member.

Attempt #3 - We brought the ballot down to the office together at 6:30 p.m. We attempted to give it to a board member. They refused to take it because apparently it was not in a green envelope. I told them that we received the numbered envelope and no green envelope. We were told to go look for our green envelope anyway.

Attempt #4 - We went back home to search for the elusive green envelope. Of course, we didn't have one. So I went back to the board meeting alone. I explained to the head of the board that we did not receive a green envelope. We received the number 59 envelope.

The head of the board looked at me like I had three heads, turned to the woman next to her and said, "We didn't send out any envelopes like this." Then she turned back to me and said, "You didn't get this from us. We didn't send envelopes like this out. It doesn't mean anything to me."

Because obviously I decided to make my own weird envelope with highlighted green edges and a number 59. Why wouldn't I?

So I said, "It doesn't mean anything to me either. But I'm going to vote whether I have a green envelope or not."

And ultimately, they let me use a plain envelope with my address written on it to vote. What a fiasco!