Carl T. Hagberg is the chairman and CEO of Carl T. Hagberg & Associates. The company was formed in January, 2014 to separate our fast-growing business of providing highly qualified Independent Inspectors of Election from our consulting and publishing businesses. The company publishes The Shareholder Service OPTIMIZER − a quarterly newsletter that helps readers to understand and implement “best practices” in a fast-changing environment − and to get the most value possible out of their investor relations and shareholder servicing budgets.
Carl T. Hagberg is quoted saying, “Over-voting is, quite simply, untenable. Allowing it to continue makes a mockery of the idea of corporate democracy. There is ample evidence that people do try to “game” the system, since votes do indeed have value – especially when the voting outcomes have the potential to move the stock price, as often they demonstrably do. (See, for example, “Vote Trading and Information Aggregation” which is easily accessible on the Internet and which documents huge spikes in share purchases near meeting record dates and corresponding sales immediately thereafter). There is also a great deal of evidence that the “gamesters” quite often succeed in gaming the vote, since, (a) as the study pointed out, one can buy votes for about $6 per million votes and (b) vote buyers will vote 100% of the time, while long-term owners tend not to vote at all, which allows the voters with “duplicate voting credentials” not just to go undetected, but to have their way in terms of the election outcomes. It is especially important to note in the context of election “gaming” that the interests of short-term and long-term owners are, almost always, diametrically opposed in election contests”.
CARL T. HAGBERG AND ASSOCIATES
Our Financial Oligarchy; Emperors of a Brave New World
