In this day and age, everything is being digitised. From things like e-books to online shopping, almost everything can be done from your phone, even voting.

Annual General Meetings (AGMs) are usually an important event for companies. Held once every year, the AGM is a way for companies to share financial information to shareholders; shareholders can then ask questions about the company’s performance. Shareholders with voting rights will also be able to vote on the current resolutions, such as the appointment of the company’s board of directors, executive compensation, dividend payments, and the selection of auditors.

It was the norm for companies to use Paper Polling to gather Shareholders’ votes in the earlier years. However, with how much technology has advanced, more companies are turning to Electronic Polling (e-polling) systems. There are many benefits to using E-polling systems, which we would be discussing below.

• Time Efficiency: Instead of having to wait for the paper votes to be counted, electronic voting would be calculated in real time as the Shareholders vote. Attendees would only have to wait a few minutes for the votes to be verified by the scrutineers before the results can be released.

• Increased Accessibility: With seamless registration and an easy-to-use interface, the E-polling platform can be used anywhere as long as the user has access to an internet connection. This allows Shareholders at physical or hybrid general meetings to vote easily.

• Cost Saving: Since the E-polling systems are all online, this negates the need for printing physical voting sheets and reduces the labour costs needed to count the votes manually.

• Reduce Inaccuracies: Electronic vote counting significantly minimizes the potential for errors compared to traditional methods.