Delaware law has for decades given businesses more voting rights than any other state. Even by Delaware standards, the tiny town of Fenwick Island chooses to offer them to an unusually broad swath of business entities. It is one of a small group of municipalities that allows businesses to vote for local elected leaders and not just ballot referendums.
That has put the summer resort town at the epicenter of a debate over who — and what — should be allowed to exercise fundamental American democratic rights. The fight over whether a hotel should be allowed to cast a ballot is drawing new pushback as President Donald Trump campaigns to tighten voting access for other groups across the country.
Delaware lawmakers are considering a constitutional amendment that would eliminate business voting rights across the state. At the same time, the American Civil Liberties Union is asking the state Supreme Court to nullify Fenwick Island’s generous voting rights and declare the practice unconstitutional. And even residents of Fenwick Island are divided over which kinds of corporations should be allowed to vote in which elections.
Delaware, one of the most business-friendly states in the nation, is perhaps best known now as the home of former President Joe Biden. In 1976, the state General Assembly gave corporations in the beach town of Rehoboth Beach a limited right to vote in special elections. (The town, now home to Biden’s summer retreat, revoked the right in 2019.)
It remains the only state that permits corporations to cast a ballot in public municipal elections, expressing their preferences for mayor or city council, though municipalities have the right to decide whether to exercise the option in their boundaries — with approval from the state legislature. A few others, including California and Florida, allow corporations to vote in very limited instances, such as in special districts.
Fenwick Island first expanded voting rights to nonresident property owners when the town was founded in 1953. In 2008, Fenwick Island became just the second Delaware town to expressly authorize in its charter voting by corporations and other artificial entities in regular municipal elections. The majority of entities that exercise the right are tied to families with deep roots in the town that put their summer vacation homes in trusts, said Mayor Natalie Magdeburger.
“We believe that it is important that all of our residents have a voice, or at least vote,” she said. “They are taxed and they are subject to our ordinances.”
Fenwick Island has about 960 registered voters. About 22% of them — 214 — are so-called artificial voters. The majority of those are family trusts; fewer than a dozen, Magdeburger said, are businesses like the Fenwick Shores hotel. In the 2024 election for town council, 109 of the 474 votes cast were from trusts, corporations, or LLCs — about 23%.
Artificial entities cast ballots only for local issues, not for state or federal races. Their leaders choose one person to physically cast a vote on their behalf. Voters who represent the businesses are typically registered elsewhere in more typical fashion, and cast those ballots in other places.