The main goal of this entire website is to make informed voting so easy that investors will do it even though their personal benefit is small. The internet will soon make it much easier, but we have not yet achieved that goal. What you learn for the purpose of voting will help you in other ways, such as when trading. For example, here 's an article on what you can learn from proxy statements. To Voting Guide 2 .
Management makes a recommendation on each item put to shareholder vote.
Most of the time, management's recommendations are in the owners' best interests. So voting with management is better than flipping a coin. But there are still better alternatives. Certain decisions are well known to involve conflicts of interest between owners and managers. That is why they are required to be put to shareholder vote.