What Every Florida Condo Association Should Know in 2026

If your condominium board has put off the conversation about online elections, 2026 is the year to have it. Florida rewrote the rules for Florida condo association electronic voting, and the changes touch every association in the state, whether or not you have ever run a digital vote. Between the amendments in House Bill 913 and the ongoing struggle to reach a quorum with paper ballots, boards that understand the new landscape hold a real advantage. Here is what every condominium association should know this year.

Electronic Voting Is Fully Authorized, and Increasingly Expected

Florida has permitted condominiums to run elections and other owner votes online for years under Section 718.128 of the Florida Statutes. The law lets an association conduct voting through an online voting system as long as owners consent and the system meets specific safeguards. What has changed is momentum. Owners now expect to handle association business from a phone, and the Legislature has steadily made electronic voting easier to adopt. If your association still relies entirely on paper, you are increasingly the exception.

At its core, the statute requires that a compliant system authenticate each owner’s identity, confirm that a vote was not altered in transit, send the voter a receipt, and, for board elections, permanently separate the ballot from any identifying information so it is impossible to tie a ballot to a specific owner. Votes cast online also count toward the quorum, which is often the single biggest reason boards make the switch.

What House Bill 913 Changed

Effective July 1, 2025, House Bill 913 added two important provisions to Section 718.128 that condominium boards need to understand.

First, owners gained a way to force the issue. If at least 25 percent of the voting interests petition the board to adopt a resolution for electronic voting for the next scheduled election, the board must hold a meeting within 21 days of receiving the petition to consider it. The petition has to reach the board within 180 days after the last annual meeting. In other words, motivated owners can now put online voting on the agenda whether or not the board raised it.

Second, and more surprising to many boards, the law created an email ballot fallback. Even if your association has not formally adopted an online voting system, you must now designate an email address to receive electronically transmitted ballots and count the ones that comply. There is a significant catch, which we explain next.

The Email Ballot Catch: Secrecy

The email ballot option comes at a cost that many owners will not want to pay. To submit a ballot by email, the owner must type their unit number and name, which serves as a signature, and the ballot must carry a statutory notice, in capital letters, warning that emailing the ballot waives its secrecy. Because the vote arrives tied to the owner’s name and unit, it is no longer secret. Owners who want to keep their ballot private must vote another way.

This is exactly where a compliant online voting platform stands apart. A proper system under Section 718.128 preserves ballot secrecy by permanently separating the voter’s identity from the ballot, so owners get the convenience of voting online without giving up privacy. We compare the two approaches in detail in our article on email ballots versus secure electronic voting platforms.

Why Boards Are Adopting Online Voting

The practical case is simple. Reaching a quorum is the number one obstacle to a valid condominium election, and paper depresses turnout. An online voting platform built for condominiums lets a snowbird in another state vote in seconds, sends automatic reminders that lift participation, and shows the board in real time whether quorum has been met. It also handles the secrecy, authentication, and receipt requirements automatically, which protects the election from challenge. For associations that would rather hand off the whole process, full voting services manage it end to end.

What Your Board Should Do This Year

Start by deciding how you want to meet the new rules. You can adopt a compliant online voting system by board resolution, which requires notice of the meeting at least 14 days in advance, procedures for owners to consent and to opt out, and an affidavit of notice filed with your records. Or you can rely on the email ballot fallback and accept that those ballots will not be secret. Most boards that look closely choose a secure platform, because it solves quorum and preserves privacy at the same time.

Whatever you choose, do not wait until the week before your annual meeting. Setting up consent, testing the system, and educating owners takes lead time.

Talk to Voting Portals

Voting Portals provides a secure online voting platform designed for Florida condominium and HOA elections, built to meet the requirements of Section 718.128. If you want to see how it works before your next election, book a demo, review our pricing, or contact our team.