Get to know Vanguard Investor Choice

Newly eligible funds will include Vanguard Morningstar Total Stock Market Index Fund and our full Target Retirement suite. This final expansion will achieve Vanguard’s goal of making Investor Choice available across its full U.S. equity index lineup and will add millions of additional investor voices to the proxy voting ecosystem.

In this article, we answer five key questions about Investor Choice to provide newly eligible and other interested investors with the information they need to know about the world’s largest retail proxy voting choice program.²

Vanguard Investor Choice gives eligible investors an easy, accessible, and free way to have a voice in proxy voting. Investors can choose a proxy voting policy aligned with their perspectives on corporate governance. That policy then directs how their share of Vanguard U.S. equity index funds is voted at public company shareholder meetings on important questions, such as who should be elected to the board and how executive pay should be structured.³

Investors don’t need to select a policy for every issue at every company held in their funds. Through Investor Choice, a single policy selection enables investor voices to be heard on thousands of individual ballot items for the companies held in their eligible Vanguard funds.

How Investors Vote insight: For the 12 months ended June 30, 2026, Investor Choice policy options directed how eligible funds voted on nearly 30,000 unique ballot items across 3,300 company shareholder meetings.

Investors hold different views on what proxy voting outcomes are most likely to maximize long-term shareholder returns. Investor Choice was created on the principles that investors deserve the opportunity to easily express those views and that a healthy corporate governance ecosystem benefits from having more investors’ voices heard. Investor Choice empowers investors to express their views by directing how their shares of Vanguard U.S. equity index funds are voted at company shareholder meetings, on votes held to reelect directors, approve compensation packages, and support shareholder rights proposals or not.

How Investors Vote insight: As of July 31, 2026, more than 70% of voting policy selections among eligible mutual fund and ETF holders were for policies other than the Fund Proxy Policy.

Effective in early 2027, investors across all Vanguard U.S. equity index funds will be eligible for Investor Choice. Individual investors, their financial advisors, and retirement and 529 plan sponsors can select a voting policy.

Participation is easy. Throughout 2026, Vanguard expanded access to Investor Choice through new technology integrations and industry partnerships, including with ProxyVote.com and BetaNXT, helping more investors to participate through the platforms they already know and trust.

Investors in eligible Vanguard funds can select a voting policy whether they hold their fund directly through Vanguard’s retail brokerage platform or through a third party.⁴

How Investors Vote insight: More than half a million participating fund shareholders have selected a voting policy for their eligible funds, representing $151 billion in participating assets under management. This includes nearly 80 retirement plan clients with more than one million underlying plan participants.⁵

Two years of survey data reveal that investors consistently value having their preferences considered and remain interested in participating in proxy choice programs. Among those surveyed, we found that:

• Investors continued to place a high value on having their preferences considered by asset managers when casting votes, with a high level of interest holding year-over-year from 83% in 2025 to 85% in 2026.⁶

• More than half of those surveyed expressed interest in participating in proxy voting programs (57% in 2025 versus 55% in 2026).⁶

The 2026 survey also asked a subset of Vanguard retail clients additional questions about proxy voting, yielding the following insights:

• Nearly nine in 10 investors (85%) believed that their preferences should be considered when casting votes for their funds.⁷

• More than half (59%) of self-directed Vanguard clients said they would participate in proxy voting.⁸

• Among investors who work with a financial advisor, 82% said they would like some level of advisor involvement if they choose to participate in a proxy voting program.⁹

The current voting policy options available through Investor Choice include the Company Board-Aligned Policy, Egan-Jones Wealth-Focused Policy, Glass Lewis ESG Policy, Mirror Voting Policy, and Fund Proxy Policy.¹⁰

Different investors can have different views about governance. The Investor Choice menu is designed to provide investors with a range of straightforward, differentiated policy options that offer different approaches to proxy voting, enabling investors to select one that is aligned with their preferences.

How Investors Vote insight: In 2026, no single policy was selected by more than 38% of investors.

Voting policy descriptions can be found on the Investor Choice webpage, and selections can be made or updated at any time.

Learn more about Vanguard Investor Choice by visiting the webpage or discovering investor participation and policy preferences in our annual How Investors Vote report.