As far as I understood every person who owns a stock can join the general meeting and vote about the company. How is that if somebody bought a single stock online? Apple has 15 billion shares. Even if every shareholder owned 1 million shares that would still be 15k people. How are they going to count who owns what?
edit: my question is not how they can house 15k people. i am asking how they can count the votes and make sure you bought a vote. if you bought some shares on a random trading site like [capital.com](http://capital.com) or robinhood how are you going to prove that you actually bought it? is there a vote button on robinhood?
In: Economics
You don’t have to go to the meeting to vote. I’ve owned stocks for over 40 years and only once went to a shareholder’s meeting. I vote by proxy which is how most shareholders vote, if they vote at all.
For big public companies a lot of shares do not come with voting rights. This is a way to make general meetings go much faster. Even those shares that do have voting power is often delegated so fewer shareholders attend these meetings then actually own stock. Apple used to hold shareholder meetings in their auditorium which houses 1000 people. But even bigger venues have been used by other companies to get all shareholders under one roof. It is now very common to hold meetings virtually.
As for counting votes and such this can be an issue, but there is usually not many votes in each meeting. Some of the more simple votes are done equally simple. For example just have people say yes or no or to raise a hand. It is pretty obvious which way the vote is going and if there is any doubt they call for a proper vote, or just discuss the issues which are likely minor. When you need to count votes it is actually quite easy if you have a system for it. Each shareholder gives their vote to one of the counters, who then multiplies this with the number of shares each control, and then these numbers are added together at the end. With a team of vote counters you may easily count all 1000 votes in less then 15 minutes manually. And each vote may be a ballot of different things to vote on. So you have a recess with refreshments being served while the votes get counted, usually only once in the meeting but sometimes twice. And of course this can also be done digitally. It can be as easy as just sharing a spreadsheet with all shareholders, this can easily be audited by anyone with access to it.
They don’t. Vote by mail, or I believe online these days. You can also have a company or organization do your voting for you by designating them as proxy. Some of these organizations show up with the votes of thousands of shareholders behind them.
In addition to attending in person, you can vote by proxy — your brokerage will send notices to vote in your brokerage account. it can be done online or by mail. The vast majority of shareholders who choose to vote do so that way, not traveling to California, or New York, or wherever the meeting is held to vote in person. There are also web streams for you to watch/listen live if you choose to do so.
EDIT: since posting this an hour ago, I just got an email through my brokerage regarding Amazon’s annual meeting. It includes a link to vote my shareholder ballot online or number to call to vote by phone, includes my control # (how they verify I’m a shareholder), date of meeting, links to notice of annual meeting and annual report, as well as a link to attend virtually.
Lots of people not answering your question.
The most important company you have never heard of is the Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation (DTCC). The are basically a law firm that holds stock in custody for everyone. Literally they keep a list of every share and who owns it. When you buy a stock on the stock exchange, you are actually sending the DTCC instructions to update their ownership ledger. They facilitate quadrillions of dollars worth of trades every year. Not billions, not trillions, but quadrillions. It’s mind-boggling.
It’s vital for companies to keep up-to-date lists of everyone who owns their stock. Remeber that most stocks send out dividends. If they are going to send payment of $.10 per share to every shareholder across every stock brokerage in the country, they have have to have extremely accurate information on a. who owns the stock, b. how much they own, c. when they bough it, and d. what brokerage holds their account. Compared to issuing dividends, collecting shareholder votes is pretty easy.
I own single digit numbers of shares of various companies. I get letters in the mail occasionally telling me I can vote with the attached QR code.
Just last week I got one from Pfizer and one from my credit union, which I also own shares in as a result of being a member.
I presume that my brokerage passes that information along digitally. I don’t see why it would be an issue for a computer to keep track of.
They don’t.
First you don’t have to go to the meeting to vote.
Second the vast majority of shareholders are John Does having a saving plan for their retirement at some manner of investment firm, they have shares in many many companies and don’t care about shareholders meetings. Often they only look at the investment performance and don’t know in which company they have invested or if they have shares at all, they just see “fund XXX plan YYY risk 6/10, YTD result +6%” in their mail twice a year.
Unless you directly registered your shares (DRS) with a transfer agent but keep them at a Brooker you don’t own squat.
Transfer agents like Computershare for example arrange (or contact a company) the voting and if applicable invite you to come to the shareholders meeting.
Most meetings are held online and voting closes before the meeting.
To directly address your edit:
>edit: my question is not how they can house 15k people. i am asking how they can count the votes and make sure you bought a vote. if you bought some shares on a random trading site like [capital.com](http://capital.com/) or robinhood how are you going to prove that you actually bought it? is there a vote button on robinhood?
Every share is tracked in a central repository. Every time you legally buy or sell a share, that is reported to the central repository, and the ownership information is updated. When you do it on something like robinhood, robinhood is handling the paperwork. When you use a personal stock broker, they handle the paperwork. If for some reason you were trying to do a completely private sale of stock, in order for the exchange to be legal, you would need to do the paperwork yourself.
Shareholders vote by email.
You click on the link in the email and it takes you to a ballot where you vote for or against all of the proposals.
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