[jschwartzi]

Vanguard explicitly asks you to vote your shares. I've gotten letters in the past asking me to cast a vote.

[travisp]

Vote on mutual fund governance questions. Not on each of the thousands of companies that the fund is invested in.

[jonknee]

You do not get 3,641 letters asking you to vote in each of the companies that make up VTI. If you own shares of a company directly you will get a letter and you may get a letter about governance of the fund you own, but not for the individual names in it (you own a piece of something that owns the actual shares).