A Delaware Superior Court judge has rejected a constitutional challenge to Fenwick Island’s charter provisions that let certain nonresident property owners—including corporations, trusts and LLCs—cast ballots in municipal elections, ruling that the town’s system does not violate Delaware’s requirement that elections be “free and equal.”
A Delaware Superior Court judge has upheld Fenwick Island’s long-running practice of allowing some nonresident property owners—including certain “artificial entities” such as corporations, partnerships, trusts and limited liability companies—to participate in the beach town’s municipal elections.
In a 19-page memorandum opinion and order dated May 26, 2026, Judge Craig A. Karsnitz granted the town’s motion to dismiss a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Delaware, which argued that allowing votes to be cast on behalf of legal entities unlawfully dilutes the voting power of natural persons under the Delaware Constitution’s Elections Clause, which states that “[a]ll elections shall be free and equal.”
Karsnitz concluded that, under Delaware’s municipal “home rule” framework, voter eligibility for most towns is defined by the town charter, and Fenwick Island’s charter expressly extends voting rights to property owners that include both natural persons and certain Delaware domestic entities—provided the voter is properly registered and meets the charter’s requirements.
The judge also pointed to the charter’s built-in limitation that the provisions “shall be construed in accordance with the principle of ‘one person/entity, one vote,’” including rules intended to prevent multiple votes by the same voter based on multiple properties or dual eligibility as both a resident and a property owner.
In the opinion, Karsnitz wrote that while fears about “faceless large corporations” controlling local government may be alarming, Delaware law recognizes corporations and other legal entities as “persons” for legal purposes, and the ACLU’s complaint did not, in his view, establish a violation of the state constitutional standard for “free and equal” elections.
The case is American Civil Liberties Union of Delaware v. Town of Fenwick Island, Delaware Superior Court, C.A. No. S25C-12-003 CAK.
