this post was submitted on 27 May 2026
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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.
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.
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
Don't worry. They'll extend it to more elections soon.
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