Corporations Can Vote in Some Delaware Elections, Judge Says (1)
news.bloomberglaw.com
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.
  • Lovable Sidekick@lemmy.worldEnglish
    14·
    2 days ago

    This is why Citizens United Corporations United has to be repealed. Don’t just get mad at a judge for ruling according to the law, which is his job. There are shades of legality judges can rule on, like the meaning of “reasonable”, but if federal law says a corporation is a person, it’s legally a person. The solution is to repeal that law.

    edit: typo

    • Rhoeri@lemmy.worldEnglish
      221·
      2 days ago

      Yep. But if it makes you feel any better, there was never a time when you weren’t.

  • arrow74@lemmy.zipEnglish
    22·
    2 days ago

    Okay silver lining this explicitly applies to voting in municipal elections. This only applies to municipalities that have a law specifically allowing a vote for every property owner and citizen.

    This is extremely limited in scope. Batshit insane, but not as bad as it first seemed.

    • mic_check_one_two@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      81·
      2 days ago

      Delaware is one of the most popular locations for shell corporations, because the state doesn’t require public ownership disclosure. If you want to hide behind a shell corporation or create a shady holding company, Delaware is where your new company will be based.

      On paper, corporations in Delaware literally outnumber humans 2 to 1. So that means those shady faceless shell corporations could easily take control of local elections. And local elections tend to have the most direct day-to-day impact on residents’ lives. So this could very easily spiral into shell corporations making local residents’ lives hell. This is quickly approaching “local residents aren’t allowed to cook or shower during the day, because Nestle was allowed to spin up five thousand shell corporations to sway local elections and buy out local water rights” levels of dystopia.

      • arrow74@lemmy.zipEnglish
        3·
        2 days ago

        Important to note that this is the case in this one town specifically because the town charter allows property owners to vote. As of right now this only applies to a few cities in the state. It’s all in the article.

        I don’t know what goes into state law surrounding town charters so that may not be easy to change. Town ordinances are easier to pass, but they may not have as much power in court.

        I wouldn’t expect it to spiral just because this ruling is very specific, but honestly who knows these days things are weird

      • arrow74@lemmy.zipEnglish
        7·
        2 days ago

        I mean that’s unlikely as this is a very very narrow ruling. Municipal elections are some of the most deregulated type of elections. I mean one town elected a dog and in some towns children have been able to legally run.

        There’s a large lack of federal and state law regulating city elections, or at least when compared to state and federal elections.

        Of course they could still change it, but it should take more than a court case. If courts care to follow established law, which is shaky the days I’ll give you that

  • ChonkyOwlbear@lemmy.worldEnglish
    33·
    2 days ago

    Okay, they have the right to vote, but HOW do they vote? If my mom wants to vote, I can’t go vote in her place as a proxy, so a person couldn’t vote in proxy for a corp. Does a company have to be 18 years old to vote? In Delaware you need a state ID or a social security number to vote. Can they get those? So many nonsensical leaps in logic have to be made to make this possible.

  • JailElonMusk@sopuli.xyzEnglish
    46·
    3 days ago

    We are one Super PAC dark money donation away from the Bill of Rights becoming the Bill of Privileges.

  • BetaBlake@lemmy.worldEnglish
    20·
    2 days ago

    Can a corporation have an ID? Can a corporation have a social Security number? If a corporation dies can I burn it in a crematory to make ashes or bury it in the ground?

    This is such horseshit

  • djmikeale@feddit.dkEnglish
    15·
    2 days ago

    Not American enough for me. When can I vote for corporations in elections? i want to be able to choose between voting for palantir or onlyfans for president

  • quick_snail@feddit.nlEnglish
    201·
    2 days ago

    Well, that’s one way for States to make a pittance from rich people.

    Every rich person will now open 99 bs companies to vote 100 times.

      • Buelldozer@lemmy.todayEnglish
        12·
        2 days ago

        LLCs are pass-through entities and not corporations. Thankfully no pass-throughs have been granted personhood yet.

        Limited Liability Companies are expressly discussed in the article and the court filing.