A Delaware city is set to give corporations the right to vote in elections - CBS News
By: Irina Ivanova (cbsmoneywatch)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
By Irina Ivanova
June 21, 2023 / 7:00 PM / MoneyWatch
The state of Delaware is famously business-friendly. With more than 1.8 million entities registered in the First State, companies outnumber its human residents by nearly two-to-one.
One city is now moving to raise businesses' influence in the state even further, with a proposal to grant them the right to vote.
Seaford, a town of about 8,000 on the Nanticoke River, amended its charter in April to allow businesses — including LLCs, corporations, trusts or partnerships — the right to vote in local elections. The law would go into effect once both houses of Delaware's state legislature approve it.
The proposal has rekindled a debate over how much power corporations should have in local government, with fierce opposition from civic interest groups who say businesses already wield too much influence over politics.
"It was very shocking to see this attempt to have artificial entities have voting rights," said Claire Snyder-Hall, executive director of Common Cause Delaware, a watchdog group.
"We're seeing voter suppression all over the county, and this is the flipside," she added. "It's not saying the residents of Seaford can't vote, but it's diluting their votes by allowing nonresidents to vote."
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A fix for low turnout?
Legislators have cast the change as a fix for low turnout in municipal elections and a way to attract business owners to the community.
"These are folks that have fully invested in their community with the money, with their time, with their sweat. We want them to have a voice if they choose to take it," Seaford mayor David Genshaw told local station WRDE. Genshaw cast the deciding vote in a split City Council decision on the charter amendment in April, according to The Lever.
According to Delaware Online, there are 234 entities, including LLCs, trusts and corporations, headquartered in Seaford — a significant number for a town where an April election only garnered 340 votes.
Seaford is one of several towns that already allow absentee property owners — those who own a property but do not occupy it — to vote on certain issues, like taxes. The proposed charter amendment would expand that further to allow any "artificial entity, including but not limited to corporations, partnerships, trusts and limited liability companies," to vote in all elections.
Under the proposal, corporate entities must register as voters with City Hall and include a list of their beneficial owners; city officials are then intended to cross-check these lists with resident voter rolls to prevent double voting, according to the proposal.
However, Snyder-Hall noted that the legislation only outlaws double voting for human residents of Seaford, permitting it for out-of-town business owners.
"If you're a snowbird, you don't get to vote twice — once in Florida and once in Delaware," she said.
31 votes from a single manager
A handful of other Delaware towns, including Fenwick Island, Henlopen Acres and Dagsboro, already allow corporations to vote, according to Common Cause. Human residents don't always take kindly to that permissiveness.
In 2019, it was revealed that a single property manager who controlled multiple LLCs voted 31 times in a Newark, Delaware, town referendum, an incident that led Newark to amend its rules. And residents in Rehoboth Beach in 2017 beat back a proposal to allow LLCs to vote.
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Delaware has plenty of other corporate inducements, including allowing owners of LLCs to stay anonymous and relieving businesses of paying corporate income tax. The vast majority of businesses headquartered in the state, including two-thirds of Fortune 500 companies, don't have a physical presence there.
To become law, the charter amendment must be passed by two-thirds of the state legislature and then signed by the governor. The current session ends June 30 but restarts next January, when the charter amendment could be considered again.
The bill's sponsor, Republican State Rep. Danny Short, did not immediately return a request for comment from CBS MoneyWatch. The office of House Speaker Peter Schwartzkopf declined to comment. Schwartzkopf has previously expressed ambivalence about the legislation.
"I don't think it's a good idea. But I don't think I want to vote to stop it," he said in a hearing, according to The Lever.
Earlier this year, progressives in Delaware's legislature introduced a bill that would altogether ban corporate voting in local elections.
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"We're seeing voter suppression all over the county, and this is the flipside," she added. "It's not saying the residents of Seaford can't vote, but it's diluting their votes by allowing nonresidents to vote."
Nonsense, it's about fairness and equity. Non-conforming exceptions like the case above have been corrected. The Disney Corporation has had and continues to have great political power in Florida, and other such arrangements can be found. And after all, the Democrats have consistently clamored for years that non-citizens be given the right to vote.
You noticed that, did you?
Personally, I think voting should be done exclusively by humans who are also citizens.
But it is interesting to watch the rationalizations go on.
This is insanity.
This inclination presupposes and declares in effect that what is good for corporations is always what is good for the citizens.
I have 2 LLCs and 1/3 interest in a LP. Do I get to vote 3 times?... And what keeps me from just forming hundreds of more corporations?
Exactly what I thought. It is easy (and inexpensive) to create an LLC.
No,no,no,no,no,no,no.
Corporation's are legal fictions and not people.
Citizens United says you're wrong
I do not care. Citizens united was decided wrongly.
Corporations are legal fictions, not people. They are creations of the state, not members of the state.
Do Corporations have a pulse? Show me how a corporation is a person.
Don't know about that but the heart of rock-n-roll is still beatinnnnn' yeah.......................
I'll believe corporations are people when Texas executes one.
They're not people, but they're also not fiction.
Delaware is a tax haven. Why shouldn't corporations vote?
If corporations are allowed to vote, then they should be limited to voting for their own kind - i.e. other corporations that are candidates. It would be an interesting outcome to see Home Depot or McDonalds being elected mayor.
What would happen when a NGO wins an election? Good question... Would Pepsi Inc. have more combined votes than the population of my community?
As long as it's sugar-free.
Well... in some cases the corporations outnumber the humans... so it wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility.
Should the age of the corporation be an issue - having to exist for so many years before it qualifies?
Great question. I dunno.
What about one that was formed somewhere else and relocated?
What if it's a subsidiary of another? So they both get a vote or just the parent company?
LOL. Obviously there are too many questions to answer here. By the way, in keeping with the principle of this story, I recall reading many years ago about a dog that was elected mayor in some American town.
Actually it isn't a joke. I did a Microsoft Bing search and came up with this:
Dude... I would have voted for a German Shepherd for president last time had it been an option.
Would have been far more alert than the guy we elected and far more honest than the one we evicted.
Not only is the corporation underage but it's an entity of color, we can't have that kind of unAmerican crap in our exceptional country.
I think a German Shepherd is far more alert than ANY human being.
What colour is it?
Corporations already "vote" with their donations to put politicians in their own pockets for profit.
It's truly hilarious in a way.
Far right wing Republican Josh Hawley in his attack on "woke" said corporations are not people!!!! Ha, ha ha! He's angry that corporations have to openly side with any and all customers with their rainbow campaigns that are just too woke for Republicans.
He's urging right wing boycotts on corporations because appealing to LGBTQ customers is a right wing taboo. Republicans never get the big picture. Corporations do anything they want and they will take anyone's dollar.