To save everyone some trouble, "some Delaware elections" refers to elections in a town that amended its charter to explicitly allow legal entities to vote.
Corporations can vote in some Delaware elections, judge says
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Re: Corporations can vote in some Delaware elections, judge says
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
It sounds like you it's only corporations that own property in the town that get to vote. So that's probably whats preventing you.
I own property in a nearby town but it's an investment; I don't live there. I'm unable to vote in their local elections. I have not heard of property ownership being a qualification to vote since the 1800s.
Which makes sense... why should anyone get a say in the local matters of a place they don't even live in?
Re: Corporations can vote in some Delaware elections, judge says
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
41% of Delaware voters picked Trump in 2024. Per https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2024_United_States_P... , Fenwick Island itself went red (the absolute bottom-right-most spot).
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You asserted "Everyone in this story is a Democrat".
That seems unlikely, given the town is a red precinct.
No one said anything about Trump's fault, just that there are clearly people and entire regions in Delaware who vote Republican. Look how red that map is - plenty of Republicans in local government.
Re: Corporations can vote in some Delaware elections, judge says
#74To save everyone some trouble, "some Delaware elections" refers to elections in a town that amended its charter to explicitly allow legal entities to vote.
More accurately: the town charter allows non-residents to vote if they own property on the island, even if the property is owned through a corporation.
Re: Corporations can vote in some Delaware elections, judge says
#75I don’t understand why people have so much trouble understanding that a “corporation” is just a proxy for the humans that own and control the corporation. In this case, non-residents who own a house on the island can vote according to the charter. The charter just says that this doesn’t change because you move ownership of the house into a legal entity that some human then owns and controls. The actual grievance seem…
Is this rich person also voting in the place where they actually live? I'm not against a rich person voting, I just don't want them to get more than one vote. I haven't read the opinion to see if that's addressed.
The town charter allows double voting in municipal elections because it allows non-residents to vote.
Re: Corporations can vote in some Delaware elections, judge says
#76I don’t understand why people have so much trouble understanding that a “corporation” is just a proxy for the humans that own and control the corporation. In this case, non-residents who own a house on the island can vote according to the charter. The charter just says that this doesn’t change because you move ownership of the house into a legal entity that some human then owns and controls. The actual grievance seem…
The problem is voting has historically been limited to, real, living things. This has inherently limited the total amount of votes cast and where.
Corporations are an artificial entity that literally anyone can make. Even things like property ownership are somewhat artificial. Lots can generally be split and joined through a process.
This allowance of artificial entities voting seems to open a rabbit hole of secondary issues.
Re: Corporations can vote in some Delaware elections, judge says
#77> Visions of faceless large corporations or even HAL controlling a small town are frightening and the stuff of science fiction. Company towns are well-recorded history, not science fiction. Lost Hills California (home of Wonderful Pistachios) exists in the real, present, non-fictional world.
That does not make it not frightening nor not the stuff of science fiction. We know how awful corporate towns are that’s partly why cyberpunk is what it is.
Re: Corporations can vote in some Delaware elections, judge says
#78It's specifically about corporations that own property in a specific town voting. So no you can't just spin up a bunch of LLCs to rig an election, this is about the rights of absentee landlords.
How about fuck absentee landlords, especially if they're not actually people?
Re: Corporations can vote in some Delaware elections, judge says
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
If the corporation is just a proxy for the owners then why is this in court? Why aren't the humans just voting directly? It's well established that it's OK for humans to vote.
Because the municipal charter in question confers to vote on the property owner. Which might technically be a corporation.
The question is, why did they bother to take it to court instead of just transferring ownership directly to their persons and then voting as humans? If corporations are just proxies then why bother with the lawyers and the court fees and the time?
Re: Corporations can vote in some Delaware elections, judge says
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
And they scratch your head and say "but... that ruling applies to regular people, like NYT staff and you and me." It simply sets a high standard for proving defamation claims by public figures.
“NYT” staff don’t publish the paper, the corporation does.
Irrelevant.
New York Times Co. v. Sullivan - and the First Amendment it draws upon - applies to everyone, regardless of what corporation they may or may not work for. An unemployed person is protected from defamation claims by public figures under it just fine.
It does not establish any special corporate rights.