Delaware Superior Court Judge Craig Karsnitz said the beach town of Fenwick Island was not diluting human votes by allowing companies and other legal entities that own property to cast votes in municipal elections.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Delaware sued the town, arguing it violated the elections clause of the state constitution. The group sought a court order blocking Fenwick Island from counting votes by “non-human artificial entities” in future elections.
The group said entities make up about 12% of registered voters in the town.
A lawyer for the organization did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The town’s mayor, Natalie Magdeburger, did not immediately respond to a request for comment but told Reuters in March that the city believes “a property owner who pays taxes and is subject to our ordinances should have a say in who represents them on our Town Council.”
So for ~$500, I, a non resident, could create an LLC and have it vote for me?
Or multiple…
If a corporation is a person then they can be executed for causing death and they can be put in jail and not be allowed to operate when they break the law right?
“a property owner who pays taxes and is subject to our ordinances should have a say in who represents them on our Town Council.” —
Uh… Yes if they’re a citizen of your town they already have that. It’s called democracy.
My guess is these “property owners” don’t even live in the fucking town or area or possibly even the state and maybe not even in the country.
Delaware Superior Court Judge Craig Karsnitz ruled on Tuesday that the town’s charter did not violate the state’s constitution’s elections clause, which says, “All elections shall be free and equal.” The judge said the clause has been understood by courts to mean free of fraud and noted there were no allegations of racial or other kinds of discrimination. — thick as two planks
However, plaintiff has not demonstrated that this policy violates the principle of one person/entity/one vote.
Since when did we ever have a principle of “one entity/one vote”?
This is a gigantic loophole, simply live in that town and register a corporation there and you can vote twice.
Corporations are people, my friend. Just people with only rights, no obligations.
Vote twice? No no no, you register 1000 companies and vote 1001 times.
Seems like the corporation would also need to own property.
How much property? You could just register 1 sqcm of your lawn to each corp…
There’s those groups “selling” 1 sq foot of Scotland. Maybe give it to your LLC and now you’ve got one vote.
So what’s to stop someone from just renting a shit ton of mailboxes in a small Delaware town and then creating millions of companies to further dilute human votes?
Wouldn’t even need to rent a shit ton of mailboxes. You can use a single mailing address for multiple businesses. IIRC there’s an unassuming office building somewhere in the middle of nowhere that is the official mailing address for thousands of shell corporations. That’s basically the company owner’s entire schtick; you pay them, and they allow you to list their address for mail. And then they’ll forward it around as needed. But that means anybody trying to look up a shell corporation to find info about the owners will hit a dead end at that tiny office building.
Delaware is already really popular for registering LLCs because it’s one of two US states that do not require public registration, meaning if your LLC is registered in Delaware its details are not public record. (The other state that allows private LLC registration, and I could be remembering it wrong so don’t count on this, is New Mexico.)
