HUNDREDS of perpetual standing proxy votes still remain in place for Grain Growers Association ballots.

At last week's annual general meeting, the Victorian Farmers Federation grains group was entitled to vote 144 standing proxies in the GGA elections but no representative showed up to use them.

GGA chairman John Eastburn said there were a "couple of hundred" other standing proxy votes.

The company made a controversial effort to get rid of the standing proxy votes but allowing the chairman and other members to still accumulate ordinary proxies.

Mr Eastburn wrote to standing proxy holders last month, encouraging them to approach their proxy donors to vote directly in last week's ballots.

A direct vote or showing up to vote eliminated standing proxies permanently.

Provisional results displayed by GGA at last week's AGM, prior to attendees casting their ballots, alerted members the VFF grains group had 144 standing proxies still in place.

Mr Eastburn told The Weekly Times the VFF had given Computershare Services permission to approach its standing proxy donors to encourage them to directly vote in GGA ballots but 144 proxy donors did not vote directly.

He said if the VFF had attended the GGA meeting, it was legally required to cast the votes. But he said the federation had opted to stay away from the meeting so that they did not have to vote.

The VFF decided about two years ago to abandon the controversial practice of using standing proxies at meetings of AWB Limited, ABB Grain (now Viterra), GrainCorp and GGA.

The VFF is believed to originally had about 300-400 standing proxy votes at GGA ballots but has never influenced a vote.

GGA members, including current directors Gerry Lane and Mr Eastburn, rounded up large numbers of standing proxies and other proxy votes to counter the VFF and progressively clean out the board.

Mr Eastburn said at one point there were about 1000 standing proxies being held by various GGA members.

He said the fact the VFF still had 144 standing proxies showed how difficult it was to eliminate them.

"It goes to show it is harder to get rid of them than put them in place," he said.