While institutional investors in public companies typically vote their shares, often with the help of proxy advisers, individual investors with brokerage accounts typically do not vote. In fact, the rate of individual shareholder voting is today at an all time low, a problem that is beginning, justly, to worry observers at the Securities and Exchange Commission as well as the leaders of small and midsize companies whose shares are disproportionately owned by individuals compared to the ownership patterns found among big businesses.
To address the problem of the low rate of individual shareholder voting, ABC supports the establishment of Client Directed Voting or CDV. We describe this proposal in a recent article in Directors and Boards, which can be accessed here.