Also known as: voting groups · voting bloc
Written by attorneys — see sources below.
A classification of shareholders by the type of stock held for voting on corporate matters. The classification determines separate quorums, voting thresholds, and record dates for actions taken by each group.
Vortex Energy's bylaws were silent on setting record dates. The board therefore fixed a single record date to identify shareholders entitled to notice and to vote within both the common-stock voting group and the preferred-stock voting group for the upcoming merger vote.
At Vega Motors' special meeting the common-stock voting group reached a quorum. The group then approved the stock-incentive plan because the votes cast in favor exceeded the votes cast against, satisfying the default rule for that voting group.
Vitality Foods called a meeting to amend the articles. The preferred-stock voting group could act only after shares representing a majority of the votes entitled to be cast by that group were present, establishing the required quorum for the preferred voting group.
After fixing the record date Villanueva Construction prepared its shareholder list. The list was arranged first by voting group, then by class within each group, and included every shareholder's address and share count so that holders in the common voting group could verify their voting rights.
Virgil Vaughn's corporation proposed an article amendment that added a new supermajority requirement for the preferred voting group. The amendment could take effect only after both the common voting group and the preferred voting group approved it when counted separately.
In August 1965 the Attorney General designated Georgia a covered jurisdiction under the Voting Rights Act of 1965 because the state had maintained a literacy test as of November 1, 1964, thereby subjecting all its political units including the city of Rome to the section 5 preclearance requirement. In 1970 Rome had a total population of 30,759 that was 76.6 percent white and 23.4 percent Negro, with a voting-age population that was 79.4 percent white and 20.6 percent Negro. Its governmental structure was fixed by a 1918 city charter providing for a nine-member City Commission and a five-member Board of Education to be elected at large by plurality vote with one commissioner chosen from each of nine wards and no residency requirement for Board candidates. In 1966 the Georgia General Assembly enacted several local laws that reduced the number of wards from nine to three, created numbered posts within each ward, required majority vote with runoff elections, staggered the terms of office, expanded the Board of Education to six members, and imposed a residency requirement for Board candidates. The city never sought preclearance for these changes or for the sixty annexations completed between November 1, 1964, and February 10, 1975. In June 1974 the city submitted one annexation for review. After the Attorney General discovered the additional changes, the city submitted all sixty annexations and the 1966 electoral amendments. The Attorney General interposed objections to the majority-vote, numbered-post, and staggered-term provisions as well as to thirteen of the annexations on the ground that these changes would dilute Negro voting strength in light of the city's majority-white population and history of racial bloc voting. In May 1976 the city moved for reconsideration of the objections and supplemented its submission with additional affidavits in July 1976, but the Attorney General denied reconsideration on August 12, 1976. The city and two of its officials then filed a declaratory judgment action in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia against the United States and the Attorney General seeking relief from the preclearance requirement and a declaration that the 1975 amendments were unconstitutional. A three-judge district court granted summary judgment for the defendants in 1979. The Supreme Court noted probable jurisdiction, heard argument in October 1979, and affirmed the district court's judgment in April 1980.
View caseShareholders are classified into voting groups according to the type and class of stock they hold. The resulting groups then vote separately on matters that require class or series approval.
The articles may impose a higher affirmative-vote threshold than the statutory default for that voting group. Any such heightened requirement must itself be adopted under the greater of the existing or proposed standard.
Yes. After fixing a record date the corporation must prepare an alphabetical list arranged by voting group and, within each group, by class or series, showing each shareholder's address and share information.
…changes in their government, which although not racially motivated, will have the effect of decreasing the ability of a black voting bloc to elect a black candidate. This Court has found, as a matter of statutory interpretation, that Congress intended to prohibit governmental changes on the basis of no more than disparate…