Corporations Can Vote in Some Delaware Elections, Judge Says
https://news.bloomberglaw.com/esg/corporations-have-the-right-to-vote-in-delaware-town-judge-says
Corporations Can Vote in Some Delaware Elections, Judge Says
https://news.bloomberglaw.com/esg/corporations-have-the-right-to-vote-in-delaware-town-judge-says
36 Comments
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.
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.
Read more in the full [story](https://news.bloomberglaw.com/esg/corporations-have-the-right-to-vote-in-delaware-town-judge-says?utm_source=reddit.com&utm_medium=lawdesk).
-Elliot
wtf
It’s cool they get all rights of people, now let’s make sure they get all the detriments like the death penalty, jail time, and taxes the rest of us can get, too.
so this basically means new votes can be artificially created by people with enough money to run a business
We have truly lost the script
Sweet, we are taking voting rights and fundamental powers away from black people in mass, but we can start granting voting rights to corporations now. Great, what a fucking awesome country we Americans live in.
Whoomp, there it is. This was pretty much inevitable after Citizens United.
So what’s stopping me from setting up hundreds of corporations so I can vote multiple times?
“Anyone can buy OCP stock and own a piece of our city. What could be more democratic than that?”
So I can register a 100 million LLCs and then I get to control a state with all my votes. Easy enough.
This is the most asinine garbage shit I’ve heard in a while and that’s a high bar given everything else going on.
This was the inevitable destination for the crazy ruling that was Citizens United. Saying that corporations are people and thus have the same rights and protections as an individual opened up the door to them being given rights far beyond what a corporation should have.
Next we’ll see them granted protected status as a minority group, making laws that put controls on their actions “discriminatory”.
I’m sure that is precedent won’t further expand the political power of the economic elite at the expense of everyone else… at a certain point, we should probably just formalize the oligarchy and stop pretending we a democratic republic.
Natural outcome of Citizens United
Do they have to be 18?
Corporations get to be natural persons when it benefits them but take on few of the corresponding liabilities. It is a systemically unjust set of circumstances.
Oh, I know this one. This is the first step to corporate sovereignty as seen in *every cyberpunk story*.
All of the corruption and none of the sweet robot arms. I’m irrate.
Delaware ? A billionaire can now create a billion LLC’s and vote. Welcome to the death of democracy.
Does this mean all of the articles claiming “Millenials are killing *blank*” now amount to accusations of murder or manslaughter?
Somebody should investigate that guy’s bank account.
For fucks sake. How long until these numbnuts say that corporations can run for public office?
We’re not even hiding the fact we’re an oligarchy anymore. The government might as well drop all pretense and just outright say it.
So can a corporation be president?
Delaware needs to get their shit together and change that dumbass “corporations are persons” clause in their laws, this is complete bullshit.
Fucking hell.
Corporations enjoy privileges that private citizens do not. Fuck this ruling categorically and fuck Judge Craig A. Karsnitz for further normalizing this.
What the fuck? Come again?
Edit: Even if it’s just to prove that the law needs changing it’s likely to get misconstrued by nefarious actors with malicious intentions… just sayin
Owning a company is the new property owner voting law
It’s not long until they decide corporations can run for office.
What! There is literally zero way this makes sense. A corporation is made up of literally one or multiple people so essentially this is saying that some people have multiple votes.
Sure, why not? Let’s just go all the way into a William Gibson dystopia.
Delaware should not exist. Maryland should have annexed it hundreds of years ago.
I always thought the downfall of civilization would hit the Mad Max phase a lot sooner. Instead we’re being slowly legislated into the apocalypse
If corporations can vote in elections then they should absolutely be able to be put in jail when they break the law.
Citizens United really was the downfall of this country
Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ
This ruling seems to cleanly violate one person, one vote. Humans own the corporations so the owners of the corporations get more than 1 vote (their human vote and their corporate vote times their shareholding percentage).