Delaware Judge Upholds Town Charter That Allows Corporations to Vote

A Delaware judge has ruled in favor of allowing a township in the state to continue counting corporations and other nonliving entities as legitimate voters in its municipal elections.

Since 1953, the beachside township of Fenwick Island has allowed voting by nonresident property owners. In 2008, the township amended its charter to allow corporations and trusts in the state, with properties in the town, to cast votes as well.

Last year, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Delaware sued the township, alleging that its voting system diluted the voting rights of actual living voters.

“With over 2 million business entities incorporated in Delaware — roughly double the amount of actual people living in the state — the people of Delaware risk having their voices drowned out when towns like Fenwick Island allow corporate voting,” the ACLU of Delaware said in its statement announcing its lawsuit.

However, earlier this week, Delaware Superior Court Judge Craig A. Karsnitz dismissed the lawsuit, finding that the township had the right under the state constitution to allow its unusual approach to voting.

Karsnitz appeared sympathetic to the lawsuit, noting that “visions of faceless large corporations or even HAL controlling a small town are frightening and the stuff of science fiction.” But ultimately, he ruled that “trusts, partnerships, limited liability companies, and corporations are expressly recognized as ‘persons’ in the Delaware Code.”

Upon the issuance of his ruling, the ACLU of Delaware announced that it is “currently reviewing the Court’s decision for next steps.”

Roughly one in eight “voters” in Fenwick Island are artificial entities (e.g., nonliving trusts, corporations, etc.). Although the ruling in no way relates to the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision in 2010, many critics on social media took note of that infamous ruling, comparing its “corporations are people” finding to being similar in scope to Fenwick Island’s personification of corporate entities to include them in its elections.

Demand Justice, a progressive legal advocacy organization, panned the ruling.

“Corporations aren’t people. They don’t have kids in local schools, they don’t drink the water, they can’t be jailed for crimes, and they shouldn’t get a vote,” the organization said on its X account.

Karsnitz’s ruling may run afoul of federal law, most notably Article IV, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution. According to one of the clauses of that section:

The United States shall guarantee to every state in this union a republican form of government.

A republican government is generally understood to be composed of people selecting lawmakers to govern on their behalf. Indeed, in “Federalist No. 39,” constitutional architect James Madison argued against governments that propped one class of people above another, which could arguably apply to corporations having voting power.

“We may define a republic to be, or at least may bestow that name on, a government which derives all its powers directly or indirectly from the great body of the people, and is administered by persons holding their offices during pleasure, for a limited period, or during good behavior,” Madison wrote.

He added:

It is ESSENTIAL to such a government that it be derived from the great body of the society, not from an inconsiderable proportion, or a favored class of it; otherwise a handful of tyrannical nobles, exercising their oppressions by a delegation of their powers, might aspire to the rank of republicans, and claim for their government the honorable title of republic.