That’s true, my wife and I currently have two residences both in HOAs, at one time we owned an office condo which also had an HOA and all three were PITAs.
The one potential area in this dispute I would question is the ability the Board to unilaterally change how the Board was elected, I would read the Covenants and Restrictions really closely to see if they grant the Board that type of power.
I personally have used this argument to stop the Board at one of our properties from changing the color of the building without a vote of the full ownership, once that happened the color change was voted down.
In general, most boards eventually end up in turmoil, they rock along just fine for years and suddenly a new neighbor decides to get on the board and the power goes to their head and the trouble begins.
IMO, HOA Boards have one role, maintain the property values in the community by taking care of the necessities.
He usually represented condo and HOA boards, so whenever I would mention a common complaint about HOA boards he would explain, in great detail, the legal rationale for why HOA boards do some of the things they do.
At the time, he was representing an HOA board that was being sued by one of the owners for enforcing their flag/banner restrictions. The homeowner claimed that his First Amendment rights were being violated because the HOA wouldn’t allow him to fly an Ohio State flag during college football season. The lawyer said he always advises HOA boards to enforce rules like this very strictly. I never forget his quote about that issue: ”If you let one homeowner fly an Ohio State flag, you can’t stop the one next door from flying a Nazi flag.”