13-05-2016, 12:46 PM
amuir Wrote:George, a proxy vote gives one person too much power e.g. someone in say the Dundee or the Aberdeen league advertises on the local noticeboard “to save you travelling to Glasgow, give me your vote” – before you know it you might have 30 or 40 votes “to represent the league”. Then an issue comes up which you feel strongly about – perhaps to get a one-upmanship on someone or to settle a previous score. Your 40 votes swamp someone else with one vote. I have even complained at AGMs about having one measly vote. The heavies always come in at AGMs armed with handfuls of proxies. If people are now elected for 3-5 years, the unelected can be frozen out for what seems a lifetime.
A proxy vote should be used to reflect an individual's voting intentions on set agenda items requiring a vote as set out in the notice of an AGM. This happens across the country from plc AGMS to your local village hall AGM. The proxy could be given free reign on the vote on set matters, but that will be entirely down to the instructions they receive. Very often the proxy who is nominated is the chairperson of the meeting and they can only cast their proxies according to the instructions they receive. The foregoing is the hallmark of good governance to ensure those members who cannot make a meeting, for whatever reason, have their opinion counted.
I am not aware of any instance where people attending AGMs are given a greater weight to their one vote on a set agenda item just because they are there over someone who may not be able to attend due to perfectly good reasons, for example, ill health. One member one vote is a long established democratic concept.
It is interesting to note who the attendees and proxy voters were at the SGM on 14/7/2015.
John Watkins