FTSE350 companies, institutional investors and intermediaries are being called upon to introduce electronic voting capabilities by the end of this year, under a government-supported review by former Gartmore chairman Paul Myners.
Myners says that structural weaknesses in the current system need to be overhauled and upgraded, and has called upon market participants to make electronic voting universally available.
Previous studies have highlighted the inadequacies of the current system for voting shares in UK companies, citing inefficient manual processing and a consequent lack of transparency.
In January 2003, Crestco introduced a system by which voting intentions could be recorded electronically, but take-up has been disappointing.
While not pointing fingers at particular participants in the chain, Myners states: "I propose to revisit this subject in a year's time to assess the extent to which the relevant participants in the voting process, particularly the proxy voting agencies and custodians, have introduced electronic voting capabilities."