Corporations Can Vote in Some Delaware Elections, Judge Says

[SamuelTheThird]

https://news.bloomberglaw.com/esg/corporations-have-the-right-to-vote-in-delaware-town-judge-says

Corporations, partnerships, trusts, limited liability companies, and other “artificial entities” have the right to vote in Delaware elections under some circumstances, a judge said in a novel ruling Tuesday.

Judge Craig A. Karsnitz rejected an ACLU challenge to a charter permitting voting in local elections by the entities that own most of the property in the Town of Fenwick Island, one of several municipalities in the state with similar provisions. Karsnitz dismissed the lawsuit from Delaware’s Superior Court, citing “the principle of one person/entity/one vote.”

“Visions of faceless large corporations or even HAL controlling a small town are frightening and the stuff of science fiction,” but “trusts, partnerships, limited liability companies, and corporations are expressly recognized as ‘persons’ in the Delaware Code,” the judge said.

The dispute over municipal voting in a tiny coastal community represents an unusual flashpoint in the decades-long fight over the free speech rights of corporations and the dark money flooding the American electoral system. The US Supreme Court held in 2010’s Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission that political spending counts as constitutionally protected speech.

[Midnight Writer]

1. If corporations have the rights of a person under the law, then they should face the same responsibilities as a person.

I want to see corporations locked up when they commit crimes, subject to mental health evaluations when they act in dangerous delusional ways, death penalty when responsible for mass casualty events.

[Coventina]

2. WTAF? The world has gone bananas.

Mitt Romney was ahead of his time.

[Qutzupalotl]

3. So they get ... one vote?

[Mad_Machine76]

4. It's one

too many