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The 2026 election cycle is jam packed with heated races. But a tiny island town in Delaware is at the center of a unique debate - do you have to be human to vote? Sally Herships and Ricky Mulvey from the Indicator have this report.
SALLY HERSHIPS, BYLINE: Fenwick Island is the kind of place with a country store that makes its own fudge, like rum raisin and rocky road. It's a beach town. When Natalie Magdeburger joined the town council here in 2021, her mom was mayor. Now, Natalie is mayor.
NATALIE MAGDEBURGER: Love Fenwick Island. It's part of my fabric and my core.
RICKY MULVEY, BYLINE: Businesses and trusts have been allowed to vote in Fenwick since 2008, and nonhumans can also vote in some elections in at least four other Delaware towns. But when the ACLU sued Fenwick in December, the town got a lot of attention, and some of it negative.
HERSHIPS: When the town was incorporated back in 1953, all property owners 21 or older could vote in local elections, including people whose places on Fenwick Island were second homes, vacation spots.
MULVEY: Fast forward to 2008, and Natalie says estate lawyers started telling people to put their houses in trusts to avoid having their kids go through a lengthy court process after they die and to lower taxes their kids would owe on the property. But when someone puts property into a trust, it's often no longer in their name.
MAGDEBURGER: And you had multiple families that were losing votes and wanted to have a say, you know? And they did the artificial entities so that the trust could vote. And then the business owners asked if they could have a vote, too. And it seemed fair.
HERSHIPS: Natalie says everyone who pays taxes - businesses and people - if you can provide them with a say, you should. The town has just over 900 registered voters, according to court documents. In Fenwick's most recent election, just over 20% of the votes were cast by nonhumans.
MULVEY: We asked Natalie if her town's voting structure could be exploited by companies.
HERSHIPS: But are you worried at all about a day where, you know, Microsoft could vote or Apple could vote?
MAGDEBURGER: Why would they want to vote for a Fenwick Island town election, you know? Would they care what time our quiet hour begins? Because that's all they're voting for. They're not voting for a statewide election. They're not voting for a national election.
MULVEY: Natalie says the town has protections in place, like a rule. Each person only gets to vote once, even if they own more than one property or business.
HERSHIPS: Voting rights have a complicated history in the U.S., so we wanted to check in with Alex Keyssar. He's a professor of history and public policy at Harvard's Kennedy School.
ALEX KEYSSAR: Democracy defined pretty much throughout the world has been about the rights of people, meaning natural persons.
HERSHIPS: In other words, Alex says, not family trusts. The ACLU's lawsuit against Fenwick was dismissed, though it's appealing. But a Delaware lawmaker has introduced a bill that would bar nonhumans from voting across the state.
MULVEY: Natalie, Fenwick Island's mayor, says letting nonhuman entities vote may not work in every jurisdiction, but in Fenwick Island, it does, at least for now.
HERSHIPS: Sally Herships.
MULVEY: Ricky Mulvey, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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