Investment giant BlackRock announced the expansion of its Voting Choice program for the first time to individual investors, extending the program to retail investors representing approximately $200 billion assets in its iShares Core S&P 500 ETF.

The move opens up the program enabling investors to control their own proxy voting choices to over three million shareholder accounts of the S&P 500 exchange traded fund, giving the retail investors a voice on issues such as executive pay, climate initiatives, and governance

BlackRock introduced Voting Choice in 2021 beginning with certain institutional clients, including pension funds, insurance companies and corporations, in certain accounts managed in the US and UK. BlackRock has been working to expand the program, with the firm announcing last year that it planned to extend voting choice to individual investors.

With the expansion of the program to the S&P 500 ETF, Voting Choice is now open to $2.6 trillion of BlackRock’s total index equity AUM, or around half of the firm’s global index equity AUM.

The firm said that using the pilot, it will evaluate investor interest, proxy voting infrastructure, and overall user experience.

Joud Abdel Majeid, Global Head of BlackRock Investment Stewardship, said:

“Broadening access to Voting Choice is one way we empower investors by making proxy voting easier and more accessible. I’m thrilled that today more than three million additional shareholder accounts have an efficient solution for participating in proxy voting if they choose. For clients and shareholders who entrust BlackRock with voting on their behalf, we remain steadfast in our focus on their long-term financial interests.”

The program gives investors several voting options, including voting proxies according to their own policies and using their own voting infrastructure, selecting from a menu of third-party policies, with votes cast according to the selections, voting directly on individual resolutions through BlackRock’s infrastructure, and, continuing to use the firm’s stewardship service, BlackRock Investment Stewardship (BIS) according to BlackRock’s voting policy.