Proxy voting.
In plain English
Proxy voting is how public company shareholders actually vote, sending instructions by mail or online ahead of the annual meeting instead of showing up in person to cast a ballot. The company sends a proxy statement describing each item to be decided: electing directors, ratifying the auditor, weighing in on executive pay, and voting on shareholder proposals. If you hold through a fund, the fund manager votes those underlying shares, not you, and must disclose how it voted. Shares held in a brokerage account without instructions can be voted by the broker on routine items but not on contested ones.
01Why it matters
If most of your stock exposure sits inside funds, your voting power has already been delegated to fund managers, and their published voting records are the only way to see how it was used.
02The math, step by step
You own 400 shares directly and vote them yourself. You also hold $60,000 in a fund, and every vote attached to those underlying shares is cast by the fund company on your behalf.
Illustrative example. The amounts here are hypothetical, chosen to show how the math works, not real quoted rates or figures.
03What this is NOT
Proxy voting is the routine annual process every public company runs. A proxy fight is a contested campaign where a challenger solicits votes against management's slate. The fight uses the voting machinery, but that machinery runs every year regardless.
04Receipts
Every figure on this page is sourced to a primary document. Tap to open the original.
Plain-English answers from our glossary. Receipts included. Never advice.
Educational tool. Answers come only from ClearMoneySchool's published glossary and are not advice. Why we never give advice