As mentioned above, the club magnanimously decided to let the members determine the future of the club – a right they already had. So, they decided to hold a vote of the membership to determine how many wanted the club to continue the way it is. Fine. Just your standard, one owner, one vote election. So, some 12,000 ballots were sent out.

According to the club, 6,500 ballots were returned. By counting the number of properties in the club at the end of foreclosure, some 3,100 ballots were returned in favor of the club. That means 3,400 members of the club choose to resign – the majority. Well, that should have been the end of it; the members had spoken and the majority, said “no”.

Except that’s not what happened.

If you have ever gotten a class action notice in the mail, describing some wrong some company had done, and that you will be part of that suit because you had some dealing with the company. You didn’t agree or disagree to anything, but because you didn’t return anything, they will just assume you are in the suit. You are NEVER obligated to anyone for anything at the end of the suit, financially or otherwise. This is called “tacit approval” when you don’t respond.

Knowing that the election would be close and knowing that if they could count the ballots not returned for the club, the club would win. And that’s just what happened.

Almost half of the ballots were never returned, The Club counted them as wishing to remain in The Club, easily insuring a victory for the club.

The club’s tacit approval counted all the ballots not returned for the club, thus destroying the “one man, one vote”. Just because you assume the owners of ballots not returned wanted to stay in the club, does not make your assumption the true.

In essence, then, as today, there was no valid election or vote.

The trial judge should never allowed this to happen because it financially obligated people who for some reason, didn’t return their ballot.