This is actually routinely happening in Delaware, several other cities including Newark have enacted this law.

From another comment [1]:

> In Newark, Delaware’s third-biggest city, a similar rule allowed one property manager to vote 31 times in a local referendum in 2018, one for each of the LLCs their company owned

https://www.promarket.org/2022/05/23/delaware-the-state-wher...

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36425994

Damn! Well, there's a good reason to never live in Delaware!

Depends how many LLCs you own.

you still don't need to live in Delaware. Hence, the law

Local referendum != federal election

"Vote early, vote often" isn't supposed to be a recommended best practice. What prevents me from opening up 10000 LLCs and solely deciding the outcome of an off cycle election?

It really boggles the mind how ignorant Americans are of basic civics. Just the other day I saw a generally knowledgeable law YouTuber state that rights are "granted by the government" which can't be further from the truth in the US.

> rights are "granted by the government" which can't be further from the truth in the US.

Yeah, this is a disconcerting trend that I've observed too. Do you this think could be an issue that's always existed at the same levels and is now easier to observe due to the window of social media (and looks like a trend), or do you think it's something new?

One possible theory is that in the race to standardize and push farther on standardized testing subjects, non core curriculums are getting cut because they are not tested for and the US has not expanded the school day or year significantly.

> the US has not expanded the school day or year significantly.

No, but while some students can benefit from the internet in general for school, I'm convinced keeping a socially-expected Skinner box on one's person every waking hour is not great in general. More specifically, learning complex, multi-faceted, and important topics while (attempting to) ignore the Skinner box is not good for any subject that is not, or cannot be, subjected to standardized testing - and many subjects that are.

It’s a non-obvious concept. If you don’t have some knowledge of the history of law, civics and republics, it’s easy to think of the Bill of Rights as granting rights.

Even with some knowledge of those things, it's hard to rationalize inherent rights with what we do to noncitizens. Everybody has these rights, but for some reason the Bill of Rights only protects the rights of Americans. Pretty easy to mistake that as the Bill of Rights granting rights.

>for some reason the Bill of Rights only protects the rights of Americans.

That is because the Bill of Rights form the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution, the preamble of which opens thusly:

"We the people of the United States,"[1]

That literature has been interpreted by the courts as the Constitution only applying to United States citizens.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preamble_to_the_United_States_...

Obligatory IANAL.

>That literature has been interpreted by the courts as the Constitution only applying to United States citizens

"For some reason" seems like a fair description of that. It's not explicitly said, the closest is "secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity."

And "We the people" is talking about who wrote it, I don't get how one can claim that bit is who it applies to.

I get the arguments made to do this, to me they seem clearly against the spirit of the Bill of Rights/Founding Fathers, something we generally hold to be sacrosanct.

Nothing is ever strange until compared. Nothing is large, nothing is small, only normality can exist in a vacuüm.

The only way I can see this making sense to anybody who is paying attention is if its presented as a tool to help their political side, which is obviously correct, against the opposing side, which is obviously the devil. Surely if _they_ had access to something like this they would use it to their benefit, the bastards. You'd have to be a saint not to use it against them! Acting fair is very hard when you keep being told your opponents aren't. No, you'd rather have an unfair system that is only unfair against your enemies...

> which can't be further from the truth in the US.

thats what the good document promises, not quite what plays out in real life

A new definition for "property rights"

One aspect of the problem is we just don't teach Civics very well as a matter of primary education. It's a big mistake.

the way the US is setup, you are guaranteed the right to vote as an individual.

There is no protection from the election being setup in such a way that your votes are diluted by some other set of votes.

This is very Cyberpunk, I can't wait for a Delaware city to allow LLCs to run for seats on the council or to become the mayor (several-dozen votes per controlling entity may help!)

In my imagination, the first thing Mayor Blackrock 9754 LLC will do is approve a referendum to phase out residential zoning for new developments, next comes the requisite Japanese tech corps, holographic ads and perpetual night. I never imagined this would be set in Delaware - but it sort of tracks.

Turns out we're fine with turning our world into a dystopia as long as that dystopia has predictable chancery courts.

Remove the "corporation" part and it kinda gets reasonable again. Would you vote for a group of people to be your representative? I might.

What about if the group of people is investors who don't have the best interests of the population in mind, but instead, only profits?

Not without a constitutional amendment.

You might want to re read the constitution.

The constitution leaves qualifications for voting up to the states. If Delaware allows corporations to in certain state elections, it would follow that they’d be able to vote for congressional seats as well.

From article 1:

>The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States, and the Electors in each State shall have the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature.

This would run into 14th amendment issues (and the "one person, one vote" doctrine) pretty quickly. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wesberry_v._Sanders and it's similar cases.

Specifically, the 14th amendment's equal protection clause is seen to apply to voting rights (of which apportionment is perhaps the most unclear, but literally giving individuals multiple votes, as opposed to different weights is sort of a beyond obvious violation).

Do you honestly think the courts will decide against corporations?

You'd be more likely to tune to your local classical station and hear techno. It'd be that out of character

There is also the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment:

  All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Corporate persons are neither born nor naturalized.

> chosen every second Year by the People of the several States

Corporations are legal persons.

Politically? Sure, but it’s not like the idea has never existed before. You can try anything politically, independent of whether it’s a good idea, bad idea, viable or unviable.

Legally? No.

I've been wondering about this for a while. Since we know corporations are people my friend and have all the rights or a person what should stop them from voting. I assume that if pressed a corporation that is 18 years old should be allowed to vote, there's nothing in the constitution prohibiting it. Knowing the current group of yokels in the SC I'm sure we'd see a 6-3 vote codifying the voting rights of a corporation.

Corporations are not people. They are constructs.

Parent commenter was very deftly referring to an infamous quote by Mitt Romney.

Got it

Corporations are legal persons, but they aren’t natural persons but instead vehicles for actions by natural persons. Granting them voting rights effectively is just granting additional voting rights for the people that control them in proportion of their control, making them effectively a form of selective electoral inequality (and, insofar as as there are government-imposed costs on having a corporation, a form of poll taxes.)

Yes, I think I agree.

However, the idea of a construct being deemed a person makes no sense given how we define what a person is.

Further, having essentially broken that definition, we have opened the door for all sorts of crazy legal things to happen! Anything can be a person. Anything can be anything, taken to extremes.

In addition to voting issues you mention, having the corporation as person means some of us have agency others do not due to how we operate companies. The owners have a shield for all sorts of otherwise expensive and risky behavior. Great as well as evil actions are possible, affordable and it is not necessary we allow these things.

I see it as very harmful.

And one day we'll even let them drive cars!

I mean isn't that what we have with a self-driving car? Who do you sue when that car plows into a group of nuns that the algorithm mistook as a black hole? Who's the driver, the passenger sitting in the left front seat or the company with shitty code?

Could they be drafted? It would be very efficient way to increase number of combatants if you could just draft a company and send the board+employees to war front...