There was never any question in voting my shares of Apple. Egan-Jones Proxy Services, Glass, Lewis & Co. LLC, and ISS Proxy Advisory Services all endorsed a majority vote election standard proposed by CalPERS for unopposed board candidates. Who wouldn’t? If shareowners can’t make the nominations, they should at least be able to turn out directors who fail to represent us. The management of Apple insists that one vote in favor of a director should be enough to get elected. That doesn’t seem reasonable to me.
I also voted in favor of the Laborers’ International Union’s measure to have directors issue an annual report on CEO succession planning. Certainly, with Jobs getting a liver transplant in 2009 and talking another medical leave, it is high time the Apple board gave serious thought to succession plans.
Ten resolutions on succession planning have been submitted so far this proxy season and I’ll be supporting all I can vote for. I’m a little surprised to see only CalPERS reporting out their votes on Apple at ProxyDemocracy.org. CalPERS also reported their votes on their site, the first of at least 300 this proxy season. If we’re lucky, maybe they’ll start reporting in advance for all their proxy votes.
[…] Working my way up the chain, I was finally able to talk with someone willing to issue the requested letter. I asked her why TD Ameritrade would be checking how I voted. She told me the representative probably misunderstood my request and thought I was asking if or how I had voted. I’m not sure how anyone could have missinterpreted my request in that way but apparently, they get that request fairly frequently. When they do, they look up our records through ProxyVote.com. I’m not sure I like the fact that brokerage staff can look up how I voted. However, even more troublesome is that they would report that I voted with “For” management, when I actually voted against two management recommendations. (see How I Voted at Apple) […]