As with most technological advances, the ability to achieve innovation does not necessarily comport with the desirability of its implementation in a given setting. The emphasis on board primacy is especially important given the unique circumstances of each company and the substantial uncertainty that remote attendance and voting could introduce into the corporate governance process. In a routine, uncontested meeting, there may be relatively few changes resulting from remote participation. The situation may be markedly different in a contested solicitation. The immediacy of real time voting may, in some circumstances, favor an insurgent.
Nothing requires a corporation to make a one-time election to allow remote voting and participation.
However, it may be difficult politically for corporations to permit remote attendance and voting as an experiment, but later withdraw it when faced with a proxy contest. Other concerns arise from the increased use of e-mail for stockholder communications. However, e-mail addresses for large holders may be readily obtained once the identity and holdings of those owners are obtained through state law stockholder inspection statutes. The combination of remote participation and e-mail solicitation may alter the stockholder meeting landscape significantly. The ability to solicit stockholders on a repeated basis until the vote at the meeting changes the dynamics of a contested election.