California Civil Code § 5103
Election by acclamation
If nominations close with no more qualified candidates than there are seats, the association may seat them without balloting at all. It is the cheapest election available and the one most often lost on a technicality, because four of the five conditions have to have been satisfied before anyone knew how many candidates there would be.
Civil Code § 5103 — the text
Reproduced verbatim from the California Legislative Counsel's published text and verified word-for-word against a second source (leginfo (Legislative Counsel official bulk code database, LAW_SECTION_TBL) · California Public Law (Public.Law)). California statutes are government edicts and carry no copyright. This is an unofficial reproduction — the official version is published by the Legislative Counsel at leginfo.legislature.ca.gov, and that version governs.
Machine-readable: /data/5103.json — the same text with its subdivision anchors, dates and sources.
What it displaces
The section opens notwithstanding the secret balloting requirement in Section 5100, or any contrary provision in the governing documents. Both halves matter. It overrides the statutory requirement that directors be elected by secret ballot, and it overrides the association's own documents where they say an election must be held — so a board cannot be forced to run a ballot by a bylaw that predates this section.
It is permissive, not mandatory: the association may, but is not required to seat the candidates. A board that prefers to run the ballot may.
The inspector decides the arithmetic, not the board
Whether the number of qualified candidates exceeds the number of vacancies is determined by the inspector or inspectors of the elections. That is a determination about qualification, which is the same adjudicative role § 5110 gives the inspector over proxies — and it has to be made against the election rules as they stood, not as the board would now read them.
The five conditions, in the order they bind
- A regular director election within the last three years. Measured from the date ballots were due in the last full election to the start of voting for the proposed one. An association that has acclaimed its way through three years cannot acclaim again — it has to run a ballot first. This is the condition that quietly disqualifies associations that have not held a contested election in a long time, which is the same population most likely to reach for acclamation.
- Initial individual notice at least 90 days before the nomination deadline, naming the number of positions, the deadline, how to nominate, and — explicitly — that the board may seat candidates by acclamation without balloting if nominations do not exceed seats.
- A reminder notice between 7 and 30 days before the deadline, repeating those items and adding the names of every qualified candidate so far. The reminder may omit the acclamation statement if by then the candidates already outnumber the seats.
- An acknowledgement within seven business days of every nomination — one to the member who submitted it, one to the nominee saying either that they qualify, or that they do not, why, and how to appeal through the association's own internal dispute resolution procedure under Article 2 of Chapter 10. The two may be combined where the nominator and the nominee are the same person.
- A board vote at a noticed open meeting, where the agenda item names each candidate who will be seated if it passes. Not a consent item, not "election results".
Why this is the most expensive mistake in a California HOA election
The 90-day notice is the trap. An association decides in February that it will probably have three candidates for three seats and can save the cost of a mailing — but the 90-day notice had to have gone out before the nomination deadline, which is itself ahead of the election. By the time anyone counts the candidates, the window to have given that notice has closed.
The association then runs a full ballot election it did not budget for, on a compressed calendar, a few weeks before its annual meeting. Acclamation is not a decision made at the end of the nomination period. It is a decision made at least 90 days before it, by sending a notice that says it might happen.
Disqualification cuts both ways
Subdivision (d) permits all nominees to run except those disqualified under § 5105(b) to (e) — the candidate qualifications the election rules may or must impose. And it adds a condition that is easy to miss: where an association disqualifies a nominee under this subdivision, its election rules shall also require a director to comply with the same requirements.
A rule that bars a delinquent member from standing, but does not remove a sitting director who falls delinquent, is not a rule the association may apply to a nominee here. The test has to run both directions or it does not run at all.
The appeal route is a statutory one
A disqualified nominee is entitled to be told the basis and the procedure for appeal, and the procedure shall comply with Article 2 of Chapter 10 — the association's internal dispute resolution. That is not an invitation to design something; it is a cross-reference to a procedure the association is already required to have.
What the record has to show
Both notices, with their dates and the method each member was entitled to under § 4040; the nomination log with the arrival date of each nomination and the date of each acknowledgement, so the seven-business-day clock can be checked per nominee; each qualification determination and its basis; the agenda of the meeting at which the board voted, naming the candidates; and the minutes recording the vote. Under § 5145 the association must prove a defect did not affect the outcome, and in an acclamation the defect that gets alleged is that a member would have stood had the notice reached them.
Related
- § 5115 — the nomination deadline that every interval here is measured from.
- § 5105 — candidate qualifications, and the rules that must prohibit denying a ballot.
- How notice reaches a member — what individual notice means in practice.
- § 5100 — the secret ballot requirement this section displaces.
- Deadline calculator — the dates, counted back from your meeting.