I made a petition!

[agamemnus]

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov//pe...-voting-system

Here is the longer version, which I had to edit to fit in 800 characters, followed by the shorter version:

Many Americans own public company shares, either directly, or indirectly through a mutual fund, certain pension funds, or index fund.

Regulations for public companies are designed on the premise that corporate management is ultimately responsible to shareholders' interests -- which is to maximize their return. This is often done via a board of directors.

Many companies recognize that to build shareholder value for the long-term, they must participate in socially responsible decisions.

Some management does not work in either shareholders' or society's interest, but only their own.

When institutional ownership of a company (index funds, mutual funds, etc.) reaches a high percentage, management is free to provide for themselves lavish salaries and bonuses. These institutions don't vote.

Often, management proposals are passed because management, for those proposals, make non-votes and abstentions as YES votes. (index funds and many other institutional funds don't vote!)

On the other hand, shareholder proposals often fail, because non-votes and abstentions count as NO votes.

To ensure management responsiveness to shareholders, we propose the following national law:
* Shareholder-initiated proposals: do not count abstentions & non-votes in the total.
* Management-initiated proposals: count abstentions and non-votes as NO.

Many Americans own public company shares, either directly, or indirectly through a mutual fund, certain pension funds, or index fund.

Regulations for public companies are designed on the premise that management is ultimately responsible to shareholders' interests -- to maximize company value. This is often done via a board of directors.

When institutional ownership of a company (index funds, mutual funds, etc.) reaches a high percentage, management is free to provide for themselves lavish salaries & bonuses. These institutions don't vote. There is often abuse by management & the B.O.D.

To ensure this doesn't happen, we propose a federal law:

* Shareholder-made proposals: don't count abstentions & non-votes in the total.

* Management-made proposals: count abstentions and non-votes as NO.

[agamemnus]

On second thought, maybe abstentions just shouldn't count at all.

[RandBlade]

Abstentions and non-votes are not votes, they're not a NO. Why should they be a no, why not a yes.

If you can't be arsed to vote, then it means you don't care.

[Flixy]

Non vote as in blanco? Don't those generally not count for plurality votes but count towards the total for things needing a majority?

[RandBlade]

In general if a vote is a straight Yes/No choice then a plurality is a majority by definition. Abstentions should neither be considered the same as a Yes or a No, they're an abstention which is neither.

[agamemnus]

Many companies are incorporated in the state of Delaware, which has specific laws regarding how to treat non-votes. Nasdaq also has its rules, but they're not compatible. Here is a somewhat dated article on the topic.

http://www.akingump.com/en/experienc...confusion.html


If I had 4000 more characters I would flesh out my idea, like how to make sure that management-initiated and shareholder-initiated definitions don't get gamed.

The reason that I think that the non-votes/abstentions should be counted as NO if there is a management-initiated proposal is because it is currently too easy to allow dilutions, management compensation plans, and board of director votes through, resulting in many cases in a collusion between BoD and management, inflated salaries, and poor performance. Presumably, shareholders may have different interests. There may be some chaos at first, though.

Some more info. Note that the dates of amendment have been fairly recent. Management still is somehow over-compensated for poor performance in (imo) a vast number of situations.

https://www.wsgr.com/WSGR/Display.as..._amendment.htm
http://100fstreet.com/index.php/2012...a-2012-update/

The main battle is to align management interest with that of shareholders and to grow long-term value. We talked about this in my university years ago regarding what could be done, but very little has been done.