Welcome to the Illumina Inc. annual meeting of stockholders. I would now like to turn the conference over to Francis deSouza, Illumina's President and CEO. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I want to welcome all of you to the annual meeting of the stockholders of Illumina Inc. I am Francis deSouza, Illumina's President and CEO, and I will preside as chairman of this meeting. It is 10:00 A.M., I will call the meeting to order. This morning, our program will proceed as follows. First, we will conduct the official business of the 2019 annual meeting. Following that, we will open the meeting to a question and answer session. Please note that stockholders who decide to ask a question may do so by presenting their question in writing where indicated on the webcast portal for this meeting. Only stockholders will be permitted to present questions, and you must have the control number provided with your proxy materials to do so.
We will review and answer questions submitted to the webcast portal during the question and answer session for up to 15 minutes. I would like to begin by noting the presence at this meeting of Mr. Charles Dadswell, Senior Vice President, General Counsel, and Corporate Secretary, and Mr. Sam Samad, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Mr. John Clift and Casey Hayes are also present, representing Ernst & Young, our independent public accountants. Mr. Dadswell has been appointed to act as Inspector of the Election to examine and tabulate proxies and ballots at the meeting. I will now turn the meeting over to him to cover the procedural portion of the meeting. Chuck?
Thank you, Francis. To begin, I'd like to mention that if there is any stockholder present who intends to vote but has not yet done so, you may vote online where indicated through the webcast portal for this meeting. You'll need to have your control number provided with your proxy materials in order to vote. You may vote until the adjournment of the formal portion of the annual meeting, at which time the polls will be closed. We have a list of registered stockholders of the company as of April 1st, 2019, which shows that as of April 1st, 2019, 164,906,939 shares of common stock were entitled to vote at the meeting.
On or about April 16th, 2019, the notice of the annual meeting of stockholders was mailed to all stockholders of record as of April first, 2019. The list of stockholders will remain available for inspection by stockholders through the webcast portal during the meeting. After the meeting, it will be filed with the records of the company. A preliminary count of the shares represented in person or by proxy at this meeting indicates that the holders of majority of the outstanding shares of common stock of the company as of the record date are present at the meeting or by proxy, thus constituting a quorum. The meeting is therefore duly convened and open for business. As stated in the notice of this meeting, there are five items to be considered and voted upon by the stockholders this year.
First, to elect three director nominees named in the proxy statement, each of whom will serve for three years ending in 2022. Second, to ratify the appointment of Ernst & Young as the company's independent registered public accounting firm for the fiscal year ending December 29th, 2019. Third, to hold an advisory vote to approve the compensation paid to the company's named executive officers as disclosed in the proxy statement. Fourth, to hold a vote to approve the amendment to our certificate of incorporation to declassify our board of directors. Last, to hold an advisory vote on the stockholder proposal to enhance election-related disclosures. To expedite the flow of business at the meeting, we intend to adhere to the following order of business. Each of the matters to be acted upon by the stockholders at this meeting will be presented in the order reflected in the proxy statement.
The first item is the election of directors. The board of directors is classified into three classes serving staggered three-year terms, with one class elected at each annual meeting of stockholders. At this meeting, three directors will be elected to hold office until the 2022 annual stockholder meeting until their successors are elected and qualified. Dr. Frances Arnold, Mr. Francis deSouza, and Ms. Sue Siegel have been nominated for election to serve as directors until the 2022 annual stockholders meeting. Each of our director nominees currently serves on the board of directors. Our bylaws require that a director nominee be elected only if he or she receives a majority of the votes cast with respect to his or her individual and uncontested election.
If a nominee who currently serves as a director is not reelected, Delaware law provides that the director would continue to serve on the board as a holdover director. Under our corporate governance guidelines, each director submits an advanced, contingent, irrevocable resignation that the board may, at its discretion, accept or reject if the stockholders do not reelect that director. In that situation, our governance committee would make a recommendation to the board on whether to accept or reject the resignation or take other action. The second item to be voted upon is the ratification of Ernst & Young as the company's independent registered public accounting firm for the fiscal year ending December 29th, 2019. The vote of a majority of the shares present and entitled to vote at this meeting are required to approve this item.
The third item is to hold an advisory vote to approve the compensation paid to the company's named executive officers as disclosed in the proxy statement. The vote of a majority of the shares present and entitled to vote at this meeting is required to approve this item. The fourth item is to hold a vote to amend our certificate of incorporation to declassify our board of directors. The vote of a majority of our outstanding shares is required to approve this item. We'll now move on to the stockholder proposal submitted by John Chevedden on behalf of James McRitchie requesting the company enhance election-related disclosures. A vote of the majority of the shares present and entitled to vote at this meeting is required to approve this item on an advisory basis. Would Mr. Chevedden please introduce himself and the proposal?
Hello, this is John Chevedden. Can you hear me okay?
We can.
I guess there's a procedural question here. It's six minutes after the hour, and there's no audio on the website for the meeting. I think maybe shareholders would think that there's a technical problem and move on to doing something else. This proposal is proposal number five at Enhance Election-Related Disclosure, sponsored by James McRitchie of Elk Grove, California. Shareholders request that Illumina provide a report disclosing the company's policies and procedures for making contributions to participate in any campaign on behalf of any candidate for public office or influence the general public with respect to an election, by disclosing contributions used in the manner described above, including the identity of the recipient as well as the amount paid to each recipient and the titles of the company employees responsible for the decision-making. Relying on publicly available data does not provide a complete picture of Illumina electoral spending.
For example, payments by Illumina to trade associations that may be used for election-related activities are undisclosed and unknown. This proposal asks the company to disclose all of its electoral spending, including payments to trade associations and other tax-exempt organizations which may be used for electoral purposes. This would bring the company in line with a growing number of leading companies, including Best Buy, Target, and Nordstrom, which present this information on their websites. It is especially important to improve political disclosure to make up for our board of directors not giving us an important shareholder right, the right to an in-person annual meeting. Not permitting an in-person annual meeting sends a message that management considers in-person contact with shareholders a nuisance. An obligation for management to explain management's successes and failures during the past year before a live audience is a powerful incentive plan for good management.
The company is now depriving its shareholders of the benefits of an important management incentive. An in-person annual meeting is a motivator of good performance by management and directors throughout the year. An in-person annual meeting is especially important this year because Illumina has spent extra money to oppose this very proposal on political spending with the promise that Illumina will review what information it shares on political contributions in the future. It is important to vote yes for this proposal to make sure that the company strictly fulfills this promise. The board and shareholders need comprehensive disclosure to fully evaluate the use of corporate assets in elections. Please vote for this important governance reform, enhance election-related disclosures, proposal five.
Thank you, Mr. Chevedden. Thank you also for telling us about the audio. We have checked, and we do have audio on the webcast, so thank you for that. Let me take a minute to share with you the board's position on this matter as we describe in the proxy statement. Illumina is a nonpartisan science and innovation-focused company committed to improving human health by unlocking the power of the genome. We are also committed to transparency and accountability. However, we believe the cost of providing the information requested by the stockholder proposal would significantly exceed the value such information would have to our stockholders. Furthermore, we believe adoption of this proposal is unmerited given our current practices with respect to political spending. For example, we have made no direct contributions to candidates for office at any level. We have made no direct contributions to support or propose any ballot referenda.
We do not have a company political action committee, and we limit our trade association memberships to those few that are highly relevant to our business. As a result, the board unanimously recommends that our stockholders vote against this stockholder proposal. We will now turn to the preliminary results of the voting. Based on a preliminary examination of the proxies reviewed and the online votes received, the proposed slate of directors has received sufficient votes to elect each of the nominees to the board of directors. The proposal to ratify Ernst & Young as the company's independent registered public accounting firm has also received sufficient votes to be approved. The proposal to approve on an advisory basis the compensation paid to the company's named executive officers as disclosed in the proxy statement has been approved.
The proposal to approve and amend our certificate of incorporation to declassify our board of directors has been approved, and the stockholder proposal to enhance election-related disclosures has not been approved. I hereby direct the result of the voting to be incorporated into the minutes of this meeting. We will report the actual voting results on Form 8-K to be filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission in the next four business days. Francis, back to you.
Thank you, Chuck. Because no other stockholder gave notice of an intent to nominate directors pursuant to Section 213 of the company's bylaws or to propose other business at this meeting pursuant to Section 215 of the company's bylaws, this concludes the time for the presentation of nominations and proposals. Accordingly, the meeting is adjourned. Before we address any questions or comments that relate to the business of the company, let me first qualify any remarks by emphasizing that during the course of this discussion, we may make forward-looking statements regarding future events or the future performance of the company. Actual events or results could, of course, differ materially. Moreover, we are not undertaking any obligation to provide updates in the future.
We refer you to the documents the company files from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission, specifically the company's most recent Forms 10-K and 10-Q and other reports filed with the SEC. These documents contain and identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statements. At this time, we will spend up to 15 minutes to address any questions and comments that relate to the business of the company. If time doesn't permit us to answer all of the submitted questions, we will answer them in writing on our investor relations website at www.investor.illumina.com after the meeting. If we receive substantially similar questions, we will group such questions together and provide a single response to avoid repetition. As there are no questions, we will conclude the webcast. Thank you all for participating.
The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.