this post was submitted on 27 May 2026
117 points (99.2% liked)

Not The Onion

21581 readers
2177 users here now

Welcome

We're not The Onion! Not affiliated with them in any way! Not operated by them in any way! All the news here is real!

The Rules

Posts must be:

  1. Links to news stories from...
  2. ...credible sources, with...
  3. ...their original headlines, that...
  4. ...would make people who see the headline think, “That has got to be a story from The Onion, America’s Finest News Source.”

Please also avoid duplicates.

Comments and post content must abide by the server rules for Lemmy.world and generally abstain from trollish, bigoted, ableist, or otherwise disruptive behavior that makes this community less fun for everyone.

And that’s basically it!

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
 

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."

all 27 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old

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?

[–] Bloomcole@lemmy.world 1 points 2 minutes ago

Mussolini would be proud

[–] panda_abyss@lemmy.ca 25 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

So for ~$500, I, a non resident, could create an LLC and have it vote for me?

[–] foggy@lemmy.world 1 points 2 hours ago

It doesn't even cost that much.

If you live in a red state, it's time to start opening businesses.

[–] BehindetheClouds@reddthat.com 34 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago) (3 children)

"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

[–] solrize@lemmy.ml 8 points 3 hours ago

Make it equal representation! One dollar, one vote. :/

[–] CmdrShepard49@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 hours ago

I wonder if they could attack them from the other direction. Some individiual is making this vote as a "company" is just a piece of paper with no autonomy or ability to make a choice. I would imagine the person casting this vote on behalf of the company is also voting in whatever place they happen to live and AFAIK that's illegal.

[–] Treczoks@lemmy.world 4 points 3 hours ago

Given that we are talking about Delaware, how big are the chances that a good amount of those companies have the size of about one letter box?

[–] dhork@lemmy.world 38 points 4 hours ago (3 children)

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.

[–] lemmylommy@lemmy.world 18 points 3 hours ago

Corporations are people, my friend. Just people with only rights, no obligations.

[–] AlphaOmega@lemmy.world 12 points 3 hours ago

Vote twice? No no no, you register 1000 companies and vote 1001 times.

[–] cosmictrickster@lemmy.world 6 points 4 hours ago (2 children)

Seems like the corporation would also need to own property.

[–] dhork@lemmy.world 7 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

How much property? You could just register 1 sqcm of your lawn to each corp....

[–] azimir@lemmy.ml 2 points 30 minutes ago

There's those groups "selling" 1 sq foot of Scotland. Maybe give it to your LLC and now you've got one vote.

[–] lmdnw@lemmy.world 4 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

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?

[–] ChunkMcHorkle@lemmy.world 2 points 22 minutes ago

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.)

[–] FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 7 points 3 hours ago

That is like, five kinds of fucked up.

[–] Fredselfish@lemmy.world 12 points 4 hours ago

Delaware your fucked up.

[–] grue@lemmy.world 9 points 4 hours ago

Fine. Register 1,000,000 companies and find some worthless postage-stamp lot for them to jointly own. Vote yourself in as mayor and then expel/imprison/destroy all the non-human "voters[sic]".

[–] Major_Tsiom@fedia.io 6 points 4 hours ago

That guy is a state superior court judge! Can you imagine a high official fucking something up so badly? The individuals in these corporations have their say, unless they don’t live there. If they don’t live there, the local government does NOT represent them. They should therefore have no say in it. This should not have been left for a single person to decide. It should have been put to public vote if it should have been considered at all. Personally, I don’t think that it should.

[–] Major_Tsiom@fedia.io 5 points 3 hours ago (2 children)

Individuals have to claim primary residence somewhere and that is where they are eligible to vote. Corporations are composed of individuals who can vote in their home towns/states. Nowhere is it written that corporations have to be democratic in any way, so a corporation very well may (probably will!) be just be a second vote for the highest ranking individual within. It’s obvious bullshit that should not be tolerated. Are we fucking blind?

[–] FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 10 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago) (1 children)

No but that judge probably got a nice bonus for the ruling.

Edit: this is a logical consequence of Citizens United. Which makes it no less fucked in the head.

[–] dhork@lemmy.world 6 points 3 hours ago

No but that judge probably got a nice bonus for the ruling.

Sir, I am offended! There is no way this official received a bonus or bribe of any kind before the ruling. That would be unethical!

This officer received his payment after the ruling was made. That makes it a gratuity, which is acceptable, according to no less an authority than Brett Kavanaugh.

[–] HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club 1 points 3 hours ago

The federal government provides minimums for voting, but they've never tried providing a maximum requirement until Trump. A state, in theory, could allow various kinds of non-humans from voting.

It is part of the reason why national elections are based on state population, not number of voters.

[–] youcantreadthis@quokk.au 2 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

Burn corpo shit human agents too