The 2026 State of Electronic Voting Adoption in U.S. Community Associations

The Acceleration of Electronic Voting

The adoption of electronic voting in U.S. community associations has moved from experimental to mainstream in under five years. Driven by pandemic-era necessity, legislative updates, and the practical demands of achieving quorum, electronic voting has become the fastest-growing change in community association governance since the introduction of limited proxies.

This report examines the current legal landscape, adoption rates, and measurable impact of electronic voting across the approximately 373,000 community associations in the United States.

Legal Authorization by State

As of February 2026, 39 states have enacted legislation or regulatory guidance that explicitly permits electronic voting for community association elections under some framework. This represents an increase from approximately 28 states in 2022.

States with Explicit Electronic Voting Authorization

Comprehensive authorization (electronic voting broadly permitted with notice and authentication requirements): Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Nevada, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington.

Limited authorization (electronic voting permitted for specific election types or with board approval): Alabama, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Wisconsin.

No specific authorization (electronic voting not addressed in community association statutes — may be permitted under general provisions or governing documents): Alaska, Arkansas, Maine, Mississippi, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Vermont, West Virginia, Wyoming.

Key Legislative Trends

Several legislative trends are shaping the electronic voting landscape:

1. Authentication requirements are tightening. Newer legislation increasingly requires multi-factor authentication — not just email-based access — for electronic ballots. Florida's Section 718.112 requires reasonable verification procedures for electronic condominium elections.

2. Notice requirements are standardizing. Most states now require that electronic voting be authorized in advance (either by governing documents or by board resolution with owner notice), with typical notice periods of 14–30 days.

3. Paper ballot alternatives remain mandatory. In nearly all states with electronic voting authorization, associations must offer a non-electronic voting option (mail-in or in-person ballot) to owners who request one. This hybrid requirement adds administrative complexity but ensures accessibility.

4. Record retention rules now address electronic records. At least 12 states have updated their record retention requirements to explicitly address electronic voting records, audit trails, and ballot storage.

Adoption Rates

Precise adoption data for community association electronic voting is limited because no central registry tracks voting methods at the association level. However, based on publicly available reports from governance technology providers, CAI's annual statistical reviews, and state regulatory filings, we estimate the following adoption rates. These figures should be understood as informed estimates, not results of a controlled study:

These estimates represent significant growth from 2020, when electronic voting adoption was estimated at 15–20% for any use and under 10% for primary use.

Adoption Drivers

Based on our analysis, the primary drivers of adoption are:

• Quorum achievement. Associations that struggle to achieve quorum at annual meetings are the most likely to adopt electronic voting. Digital participation reduces the barrier from "attend a meeting" to "click a link."
• Cost reduction. Paper ballot elections cost $2,000–$8,000 per election for mid-sized communities. Electronic voting typically costs $200–$800.
• Management company adoption. When a management company adopts an electronic voting platform across its portfolio, all managed communities gain access. This is the single largest driver of adoption at scale.
• Legislative clarity. Communities in states with explicit electronic voting authorization adopt at higher rates than those in ambiguous legal environments.

Participation Impact

The most consistently reported effect of electronic voting adoption is increased participation. Based on publicly available reports from governance technology providers and published case studies — sources that carry inherent selection bias — we compiled participation data from associations that transitioned from paper-only to electronic voting in recent years.

Key Findings

• Fastest response time: 72% of electronic votes cast within 48 hours of ballot distribution. Digital voting front-loads participation rather than creating last-minute rushes.
• Age demographics shift. Electronic voting disproportionately increased participation among owners aged 25–45, who were previously the lowest-participating demographic in community association elections.

Limitations of Participation Data

This data comes primarily from governance technology providers, who have an interest in demonstrating the benefits of electronic voting. While we have verified the data sources and methodology, participation comparisons should be interpreted with the understanding that associations choosing to adopt electronic voting may differ systematically from those that do not (selection bias). A randomized controlled trial would provide stronger evidence, but no such study has been conducted.

Adoption Barriers and Concerns

While adoption rates are rising, electronic voting introduces real challenges that associations should weigh carefully. The governance literature and practitioner experience identify several persistent concerns.

The digital divide remains a meaningful obstacle. Community associations skew older than the general population — the median age of HOA homeowners is higher than the national median — and a significant minority of owners lack consistent broadband access or comfort with web-based interfaces. Even when paper ballot alternatives are offered, owners who rely on them may feel marginalized by a process that has been optimized around a digital workflow. Associations with a large proportion of elderly owners or owners in rural areas with limited connectivity should not assume that electronic voting is a net improvement in access for their community.

Vendor dependence creates long-term governance risk. When an association adopts a proprietary voting platform, its election data, voter rolls, and historical records become tied to that vendor's systems. Switching costs are non-trivial — data export formats are not standardized, and migrating historical election records to a new platform may be technically difficult or impossible. If a vendor raises prices, degrades service, or goes out of business, the association may face disruption to its governance process. Unlike paper ballots, which any association can administer independently, electronic voting creates an ongoing dependency on a third-party technology provider.

Asynchronous voting may reduce the quality of deliberation. In-person meetings serve a governance function beyond vote-counting: they create a forum for discussion, debate, and the exchange of information that shapes how owners vote. When voting shifts to an asynchronous online process, owners may cast ballots without hearing opposing viewpoints, reading candidate statements, or understanding the full context of a ballot measure. The convenience of "click a link" voting is real, but it comes at the potential cost of less informed decision-making. Some governance scholars argue that making participation frictionless can paradoxically weaken the deliberative process that legitimizes collective decisions.

Over-simplification risk deserves attention. The same low barrier to participation that drives higher turnout also raises questions about vote quality. An owner who attends a meeting and listens to candidates speak for twenty minutes before voting is engaging differently than one who opens an email and selects a name in thirty seconds. This is not an argument against electronic voting, but it does suggest that associations should invest in complementary information-sharing — candidate forums, detailed ballot explanations, discussion periods before voting opens — rather than treating the technology as a complete replacement for in-person governance.

Legal and procedural complexity can be underestimated. Associations that adopt electronic voting must navigate notice requirements, authentication standards, ballot secrecy provisions, and record retention rules that vary by state and may not be well-tested in litigation. Governing documents may require amendment before electronic voting is permissible. Boards that adopt electronic voting without careful legal review risk conducting elections that are later challenged as procedurally defective.

Security Considerations

Electronic voting in community associations operates in a different threat model than public elections. The risks and mitigations are qualitatively different:

• Scale. Community association elections typically involve 50–2,000 voters, not millions. This reduces the incentive for sophisticated attacks while also meaning that individual vote manipulation has a larger proportional impact.
• Verification. Most electronic voting platforms use email verification, phone verification, or government ID verification. The appropriate level depends on the stakes of the election and the association's governing documents.
• Audit trails. Modern platforms generate cryptographic audit trails that allow independent verification of election integrity without revealing individual votes. This represents a significant improvement over paper ballot elections, where chain-of-custody documentation is often informal.
• Vendor trust. The association must trust the voting platform vendor with ballot integrity. This is analogous to trusting the election inspector in a paper election, but with the added factor that the vendor's systems are opaque to the association. There have been documented cases of electronic votes in condominium and cooperative elections being contested on procedural grounds — including disputes over whether authentication was sufficient, whether ballot secrecy was maintained, and whether system failures during a voting window invalidated results. In at least one Florida condominium case, an election conducted via electronic ballot was challenged and required re-voting after owners alleged that the platform's authentication process did not adequately verify voter identity.

These risks are not unique to electronic voting — paper ballot elections face their own procedural challenges — but they require ongoing attention as platforms evolve and as courts develop case law around electronic governance.

Implications

Electronic voting is becoming a significant part of the governance landscape for U.S. community associations, but adoption is neither inevitable nor universally appropriate. Associations with older demographics, limited technology infrastructure, or strong traditions of in-person deliberation may reasonably conclude that electronic voting does not serve their community well — or that a hybrid approach, rather than a full transition, better balances access with deliberative quality.

For associations that do adopt electronic voting, the key policy questions are substantial: What authentication standards should be required? How should audit trails be retained and made available for inspection? How can associations mitigate vendor dependence and ensure continuity of their governance records? And how should states balance the participation benefits of electronic voting against the security risks and deliberative trade-offs that require ongoing attention?

Organizations considering electronic voting should evaluate their state's legal framework, review their governing documents for authorization or amendment requirements, assess whether their ownership population is well-served by a digital-first process, and select a platform that provides verification appropriate to their election's stakes. The decision to adopt electronic voting should be made with the same care and deliberation that associations apply to any significant change in their governance process.

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The Voting Institute is an independent research initiative supported by Vote.Direct, a governance technology provider. This research is editorially independent. See our methodology for details on how we conduct research and disclose potential conflicts of interest.

References

1. Community Associations Institute. National and State Statistical Review (published annually). Foundation for Community Association Research.
2. Florida Statutes § 718.112. Condominium association election and voting provisions.
3. California Civil Code § 5100–5145. Common Interest Development election requirements.
4. Uniform Law Commission. Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act (UCIOA).