RANCHO SANTA FE — The Rancho Santa Fe Association board gave the OK for its new voter rules and verification form to be posted for a 30-day period to allow for member comment before finalization.
The new process will help with voter verification but will not impact Covenant members who are already registered to vote. RSF Association President Fred Wasserman encouraged members to take part in this 30-day timeframe.
“During this comment period, you will have an opportunity to submit recommendations and changes to the Board at the March meeting,” he said. “We will then finalize these rules and put them into effect.”
Wasserman wants members to know that they can get a copy of the new rules and verification form on the Association’s website and bulletin board.
“Your comments will be greatly appreciated because while we’ve done a lot of due diligence on this, you might see something that we’ve missed,” Wasserman said.
Wasserman shared that over the course of the last several months, he along with RSF Association Director Allen Finkelson and outside counsel worked on the new rules and verification form.
Finkelson reiterated that those registered to vote do not have to do anything.
“These rules say everybody stays the same, unless they want to change. So these are really for people who have wanted a change, who haven’t ever registered to vote and now want to vote, and obviously for new owners,” Finkelson said. He added, “So this is really trying to be responsive to the comments we’ve gotten from membership during the long period of review of the articles and bylaws, to have to least some minimal verification form.”
It was pointed out that the election inspector would only count a vote if there is a verification form.
This is the first year the Association will be doing this, Wasserman said, and they will probably do it by initially addressing the people who have never registered to vote under the old system.
A number estimated at 300.
“Those people will get a verification form and will also get a call,” Wasserman said. “We’re trying to get them in the database as entitled to vote because without the verification you’re not entitled to vote.”
Wasserman also noted how members will now have the opportunity to change any information on their end for the Association’s database. Another important item was ensuring that the Association had the email addresses of their members in the database as well.
“One of the other things is every one of our escrow companies in the area will have this form and this will be part of the escrow process,” Wasserman said.
