You Own Wall Street › Voting choice › Vanguard Investor Choice

Vanguard Investor Choice: choose how your share of the fund votes

Launched in 2023, Vanguard Investor Choice gives investors a voice on important shareholder matters, such as director elections and executive compensation, at companies held by eligible Vanguard funds. Investors can choose a proxy voting policy that determines how their proportionate share of eligible funds votes. (Vanguard, September 29, 2026)

In 2026 the program covers 32 Vanguard funds (Vanguard, February 25, 2026), in every share class, and 507,000 investors took part this year (Vanguard, September 29, 2026).

The policies

If an investor does not select a voting policy option, the participating fund will continue to vote the investor’s share of the fund based on the Fund Proxy Policy. (Vanguard Investor Choice)

• Company Board-Aligned Policy: Votes your share the way each company's board recommends.
• Egan-Jones Wealth-Focused Policy: Follows proxy adviser Egan-Jones; by rule it rejects environmental, social or political proposals unless they directly add to the company's revenue.
• Glass Lewis ESG Policy: Follows proxy adviser Glass Lewis, on the view that more disclosure on environmental, social and governance issues can reduce company risks.
• Mirror Voting Policy: Votes your share in about the same proportions as the other shareholders voting at each meeting.
• Fund Proxy Policy (the default): The fund's own policy, adopted by its trustees. Your share votes this way if you choose nothing.

Two of the policy options available to investors (Company Board-Aligned Policy and Mirror Voting Policy) are executed based on a defined (or “mechanical”) instruction that does not involve any discretion. Three of the policy options available to investors (Egan-Jones Wealth-Focused Policy, Glass Lewis ESG Policy, and Fund Proxy Policy) are executed based on defined guidelines that reflect different approaches and perspectives about the appropriate outcomes of proxy ballot proposals. (Vanguard Investor Choice)

Vanguard says its investors chose across the range, with no single policy above 38% of selections (Vanguard, September 29, 2026). We describe the policies in their publishers’ words; we don’t recommend one.

The funds, and how each voted in 2026

Vanguard lists these funds by name; every share class of a listed fund is in. The votes are each fund’s own, cast under its Fund Proxy Policy, which votes the share of every holder who chose nothing.

How to read itFunds Vanguard lists in Investor Choice, with the list that names each. For each issue, the figure is how many shareholder proposals the fund backed out of those it voted on; exec pay is how often it backed management’s executive-pay resolutions. Every figure comes from the fund’s own 2026 SEC filing of its proxy votes, Form N-PX, linked from the fund’s page.

Next year, and in your 401(k)

Vanguard says it will bring all of its U.S. equity index funds into Investor Choice in 2027 (Vanguard, September 29, 2026). Through an employer plan, the plan sponsor makes the choice for the plan: Vanguard lists individual investors, financial advisors and plan sponsors as the ones who can choose. Vanguard counts $151 billion of participating assets in 2026 (Vanguard, September 29, 2026).

Since the program began, a Vanguard index fund’s own SEC filing shows its vote and smaller blocks cast another way for the holders who chose another policy: Vanguard Investor Choice, in the filings.

SourcesVanguard Investor Choice; Vanguard, September 29, 2026; Vanguard SAI supplement of October 21, 2025; Vanguard release of February 25, 2026