We provide explanations and background information on elections, voting rights and digital democracy
Voting Power
Voting power, also known as voting interest, is a business term referring to the distribution of voting rights between shareholders of a company. In contrast to the democratic norm in political elections in which one person receives one vote, the corporate world generally offers one vote per ordinary share holding of which one person can own many. Therefore, someone owning the majority of ordinary shares has the majority of votes and thus the voting power to pass resolutions on their own.
To illustrate, imagine Company A issued 1,000 ordinary shares, 600 of which were purchased by Mrs. Smith, 300 were purchased by Mr. Anderson and 100 were purchased by company B. In this instance, Mrs. Smith owns a controlling share of Company A and thus has the voting power to make decisions and pass resolutions on her own. Even were Mr. Anderson and company B to work together, they would still not have the voting power to pass resolutions or impact the direction of the company.