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Robert Racansky's avatar

If you want to see what it looks like when corporations are allowed to vote, look at what goes on in homeowner associations where a large percentage of the housing units are owned by non-resident investment owners.

I don't think this happens with single-family home H.O.A.s -- yet -- but it does happen quite a bit in condominium associations where investment groups hold a super-majority of the votes and act against the interests of the actual resident owners.

For example, it's not uncommon for an investment firm that owns enough units to vote to dissolve the condo association, divesting the resident owners of their homes (but not their obligations to pay their mortgages).

To his credit, Florida Governor Jeb Bush vetoed a bill in 2006 that would have made it easier for this to happen. But Republicans will republican. When Charlie Crist became governor the bill was passed again and signed into law in 2007. The consequences were predictable.

> "Condo owners say a 7-year-old change in state law now is forcing them from their homes as investors convert their buildings into rentals. Some condo owners say they’re being pressured to sell as investment groups slowly take over whole complexes, often by snapping up foreclosed units. Their goal is to sell the properties at a profit." (Naples Daily News, September 08 2014).

> "About 20 owners in Boynton Beach’s Via Lugano condominium filed a lawsuit in June to block a Newton, Mass.-based company from using a state law to force them to sell their homes. According to Florida condo law, a condominium can be dissolved if 80 percent of owners agree to its termination. At Via Lugano, the company Northland Lugano owns an estimated 93 percent of the units." (Palm Beach Post, August 28 2014).

It is also extremely hard to organize owners to take collective action when unit owners are corporations, and you can't even figure out who the actual people responsible are. I know, because I've done it out of necessity. But that's another story.

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Gbill7's avatar

Reading this, at first I thought, ‘well this idea is nuts’. And what a bad legal precedent it would create - ten years from now, would they decide that an AI Chatbox is an ‘entity’ that should be allowed to vote?

But then you - with your ever-perceptive mind - pointed it out -delegated voting. That’s where they’re going with this. Bad, bad idea.

Ultimately, the Supreme Court may need to clarify not only what is a ‘person’, but what is ‘life’, which means they’ll have to wrestle with ‘a soul’. Good luck defining the legalities of that!

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