One point of clarification: the article states that "Moxyvote.com, on the other hand, is a more overtly ideological site, providing its own list of shareholder advocates." It's worth noting that Moxy Vote is not providing our own recommendations or ideologies -- we provide a platform that allows others to do that work.

Moxy Vote will accept advocates of any political, religious or ideological persuasion, with the goal of putting passion into the somber act of proxy voting. We intend to increase retail participation in the proxy voting process, and we'd love to host debates among liberal advocates, conservative advocates, activist hedge funds, individual shareholders and the companies themselves.

“First, most shareholders don’t vote because they assume their votes don’t matter; shareholder votes are almost never close.”

However, this year that is changing. With most of the Fortune 500 using majority vote requirements to elect directors and with “broker votes” no longer allowed when retail shareowners fail to vote within 10 days of the annual meeting, your vote counts more than ever. We are sure to see several directors turned out of office. That doesn’t stop them from replacing tweedle dee with tweedle dum, but its a good start.

“There is no water cooler for corporate democracy. A presidential or mayoral race prompts conversations among friends and colleagues and generates daily press coverage. A corporate proxy vote doesn’t. We don’t all own the same shares, and even if we did, we probably wouldn’t talk about it.”

That’s where sites like Shareowners.org and my own blog come in. People should be talking about how they are voting. It would be great to have TV shows like the Nightly Business Report actually providing analysis of the issues facing owners, rather than tips for the next bet. If PBS doesn’t do it, Spitzer could do it through Slate.com.