Since Senate Bill 1184 passed in 2004, Florida's condo owners had the opportunity to petition the Office of the Condo Ombudsman to have a trained election monitor conduct the election at the annual meeting. Many associations have used the services of election monitors -- and a wide majority was very happy, according to the many comments we heard from board members and owners over the years.

We all know that elections in associations can be very emotional and are often not very peaceful. We often hear that "nobody wants to run for the board" and "apathy runs wild!" That maybe the case in some associations, but Nan Green and Eric Glazer can tell you stories of elections that turned into wars -- even getting physical.

A neutral party -- like an election monitor -- often helps to keep the feuding parties at bay.

During all these years homeowners living in homeowners' associations have requested election monitors, only to be told: This service is only available for condominium associations.

Listen to Nan Green and Eric Glazer discussing the process from requesting an election monitor to the actual election. They discuss the need to extend this service to homeowners' associations in order to guarantee fair elections.