Hundreds Of Companies Will Have Qr Codes On Their Proxy Materials This Year – To Take Voters Straight To Mobile Voting Platforms

At Least Six Companies – Including Gm And Allstate – Will Take Voters Directly To Their Very Own Voting Accounts

Wow! We think the new mobile-voting  applications that Broadridge and Computershare  are  rolling  out this proxy season will prove to be the biggest and best innovations in proxy voting technology ever.

Scanning a QR code with your own mobile device gets around the many impediments to actually voting ones’ proxies better than anything we can think of: It’s quick. It’s easy. It takes you straight to the voting site, where you can view everything you would be able to see on your own PC – or on the paper documents – and allows you to cast your vote – virtually from anywhere – and at any time and place that’s most convenient.

Computershare is placing QR codes on all but “a very small handful of companies” of the roughly 1,000 whose proxies they tabulate, that will take you to their central proxy-voting website this season.

Broadridge is placing personalized QR codes (“PURLS” – for “Personalized URLs” we’ve since learned) on the NOTICES… for at least six companies so far – that will automatically  enter  and  authenticate the  recipient’s own Control Number, so they’ll be set to vote as soon as they connect. (Computershare says they do this now too, in Australia, and will probably roll-out PURLS in the US by next proxy season.)

Last year – with no fanfare or special marketing efforts at all, over 150,000 people recognized the QR codes on their own – and voted their proxies from a mobile device. Roughly 30% of these folks had never voted a proxy on the Broadridge site before, as far as Broadridge could tell.

Another factor that gets us so excited, is that the demographic group that is most likely to use the ap is the group that is otherwise the least likely group to ever vote a proxy – the ‘under-sixty set.’

P.S. If you’re not sure what a QR code stands for, it’s Quick  Response…If  you’ve  never seen one, scan this one with your iPhone or a similar device. This will be BIG…we guarantee… Readers, we will keep you updated…