Bill Knight: Give corporations the right to vote?

This article originally appeared in the Community Word on July 28, 2023 and was written by Bill Knight.  

Below is executive director Claire Snyder-Hall’s quote included in the article on the amendment to the Seaford city charter that would allow corporations the right to vote in municipal elections.

“This legislation has the power to transform our elections for the worse,” said Claire Snyder-Hall, executive director of the watchdog group Common Cause Delaware. “With Delaware’s lenient incorporation regulations, this legislation could give LLCs, trusts, and outsiders the power to dominate Seaford’s elections.

“Artificial entities should not have voting rights.”

“In a state with more registered businesses than residents, this bill gives wealthy outsiders the power to override the actual people of Seaford,” Snyder-Hall said.

More than 65% of all Fortune 500 companies and more than half of all U.S. publicly-traded companies are incorporated in the state of Delaware, according to Harvard Business Services (HBS) — some 1.6 million companies, including Alphabet (Google), Amazon, American Express, Comcast (NBC), CVS, Disney, Tesla and Walmart — plus the aforementioned Peoria employers.

“This is another step down the road to corporate tyranny,” Snyder-Hall said.

To read the full article, click here.