Our Governing Documents clearly stated only HOA members can vote, then defined members as owners, trusts, beneficiaries REGISTERED with the ...

Question

Our Governing Documents clearly stated only HOA members can vote, then defined members as owners, trusts, beneficiaries REGISTERED with the County Registrar. We have no proxies because all elections are by mail. Many organizations, including the military, allow additions can be made to an ordinance, but nothing can be taken away from an ordinance. Can Governing Documents exclude "administrator, executor, guardian, or conservator" if not registered with the County?

Excerpts from:

7517(4) The name signed purports to be that of an administrator, executor, guardian, or conservator representing the member

7517(5) The name signed purports to be that of a receiver or trustee in bankruptcy

Answer

As I see it, the difficulty here seems to arise from what the drafter of these governing documents meant by "County Registrar." As far as I know, most counties have a registrar of voters, whose office deals with registering voters and nothing else, and no other county official (usually, at least) bears the title "registrar." Instead, counties have "recorders" whose job includes receiving and entering documents into the county's official records. Such records would often reflect the identities of persons acting in capacities such as administrator, executor, guardian or conservator. The records of the county's Superior Court would also contain official documents identifying such individuals. Therefore, I think there may have been a document-drafting error in the creation of your HOA's Governing Documents. This is only a guess.