More: Judge Craig A. Karsnitz rejected an ACLU challenge to a charter permitting voting in local elections by the entities that own most of the property in the Town of Fenwick Island, one of several municipalities in the state with similar provisions. Karsnitz dismissed the lawsuit from Delaware's Superior Court, citing "the principle of one person/entity/one vote."

"Visions of faceless large corporations or even HAL controlling a small town are frightening and the stuff of science fiction," but "trusts, partnerships, limited liability companies, and corporations are expressly recognized as persons' in the Delaware Code," the judge said.

Karsnitz, writing in a 19-page opinion Tuesday, rejected an array of constitutional arguments advanced by the ACLU, including the claim that entity voting dilutes the political power of living people.

The lawsuit "does not allege discrimination based on race or political partisanship," show "that entity property owners vote sufficiently as a bloc to usually defeat the preferred candidates of natural persons," or assert "that Fenwick's charter distinguishes between natural persons and entity property owners with the discriminatory intent to fence out natural persons," the judge said.