How much time do you have?
Put in the date of your annual meeting. We will count every statutory deadline backward from it and tell you honestly whether it still works, including what your options are if it does not.
The schedule, counted backward
These are not our house rules. Each one is a deadline in the Civil Code, and the three thirty-day windows run one after another rather than side by side, which is why the whole thing needs about ninety days.
- −150days before
Acclamation initial notice
Only if you want the option of seating an uncontested board without ballots. The notice must go out at least 90 days before the nomination deadline, and that deadline already sits about 60 days before your meeting.
California Civil Code § 5103(b)(1) - −90days before
Election rules locked
Election operating rules cannot be amended less than 90 days before an election. If your rules do not already authorise what you want to do, such as electronic voting, this is the last day to change them.
California Civil Code § 5105 - −90days before
Nomination notice out
General notice of the procedure and the deadline for submitting a nomination, at least 30 days before that deadline.
California Civil Code § 5115(a) - −60days before
Nominations close
After this the candidate list is fixed, which matters because the next notice has to contain it.
California Civil Code § 5115(a) - −60days before
Pre-ballot general notice out
Return address and deadline, the date and time of the count meeting, and the full list of candidate names. At least 30 days before ballots are distributed.
California Civil Code § 5115(b) - −30days before
Ballots mailed
First-class mail, two preaddressed envelopes, not less than 30 days before the voting deadline.
California Civil Code § 5115(c) - Day 0the meeting
Meeting, count and certification
Ballots counted in public at a properly noticed open meeting. Results reported by general notice within 15 days.
California Civil Code § 5120
If you are already inside ninety days
Call us anyway. But you should hear the real answer first, because it is usually not the one boards are hoping for: the nomination notice has to go out 90 days before the vote, so once that day passes, a compliant election to your meeting date is no longer possible however fast anyone moves.
Moving the meeting is the normal fix
The notice periods in § 5115 are floors, not suggestions, and an election run inside them is the kind a member can void under § 5145. Pushing the annual meeting out a few weeks costs less than defending a challenge, and most governing documents allow it. This is the answer we give most often.
Acclamation is probably already closed
Seating an uncontested board without ballots sounds like the shortcut, and it is not. Civil Code § 5103(b)(1) requires the initial notice at least 90 days before the nomination deadline, and that deadline already sits about 60 days ahead of your meeting. If the notice has not gone out, acclamation is not available for this election however few candidates you have.
Worth knowing. AB 1892 cuts that initial notice from 90 days to 30 with effect from 1 January 2027. For elections after that date acclamation gets much easier to reach, and a lot of small associations will stop mailing ballots at all.
A failed quorum is not a disaster
If your governing documents require a quorum and the ballots do not reach it, the association may call a reconvened meeting at least 20 days later, and at that meeting the quorum to elect directors drops to 20 percent of members, voting in person, by proxy, or by secret ballot. Every ballot the inspector has already received counts as a member present. This route only helps once a properly noticed election has actually run, so it rescues a turnout problem rather than a calendar problem.
Last reviewed September 23, 2026. We are not attorneys and this page is not legal advice. Your governing documents may set longer periods than the statute, and where they do, the longer period governs.