Will U.S.A. Reflect on its Representation Flaws?

Posted on by July 4, 2026

The 250th birthday of the United States ought to be a time for reflection of how our system of representative government is faulty.

1. The United States is the only nation in the world with elections for a national legislative body, in which adult citizens of the capital city have no voting representation. That violates every value of the Constitution and the other founding documents of the nation.

2. The United States is the only nation in the world in which candidates for chief executive officer appear on ballots, and yet the person who comes in second is sometimes proclaimed the winner over the candidate who places first.

3. Even though the Constitution says that anyone who meets the age, residence, and citizenship requirements can run for either House of Congress, one state, Georgia, does not permit anyone but a Republican or a Democratic nominee to run for U.S. House. The existing 5% law for other candidates is 83 years old and has never been overcome by a minor party candidate, and has not been overcome by an independent candidate since 1964, when the rules were easier. Evidence has been presented to judges in Georgia that at least twenty candidates have made vigorous attempts to qualify, and they have all failed. The Eleventh Circuit’s response in 2022 was to rule that states have a “compelling” interest in preventing candidates who don’t have huge support from running. The U.S. Supreme Court refused to disturb this ruling.

Comments

Will U.S.A. Reflect on its Representation Flaws? — 68 Comments

  2. Winger obviously wants more Democrats in office to shove communism down our throats.

  3. 1) DC is not a state, it is a federal district. The founders did not want a federal district having too much power. DC has too many government employees, government contractors and lobbyists.

    2) The founders set up a system where the states elect the President, not national popular vote. This was meant to not concentrate too much power in high population areas. Some states were granted more land than others and some have larger populations than others.

    3) I agree that the ballot access law in Georgia for US House is too difficult. The petition requirement for US House in Georgia should be significantly reduced.

  5. It’s a shame that, instead of celebrating what makes us unique, Mr. Winger just apparently wants us to be like every other country in the world. Why bother to have declared independence, were that the goal?

  6. Roman, I’d say we could improve our congressional ballot access laws here in Georgia. But, I do wonder why Mr. Winger chose those as the worst ballot access barrier in the country. There are many respects in which other states have more difficult ballot access barriers than we do, as Mr. Winger would be the first to know.

  7. 1 and 2 are nonstarters. I think from what I read New York has the worst Presidential ballot barriers. But clearly Mr. Winger chose to pick on a Southern state for a reason, as if the damned Yankee scum were better than us.

    He’s probably a fan of the evil tyrant Lincoln and his illegal, unconstitutional war. He probably opposes restoring the antebellum constitution and paying reparations to the South for the illegal war and the attendant destruction and illegal confiscation of property.

  8. Restoring the antebellum constitution and compensation of the South are excellent ideas. Kicking kalipornia out of the union would make my triumvirate, in contrast to Mr. Winger’s.

  9. I heartily agree with Andy. If the Electoral College is a bad thing (which Richard implies in his commentary) then so to is the composition of the U.S. Senate. Benjamin Franklin said it best. A Republic if we can keep it.

  12. A government of, by, and for:

    Me, Myself, and I.

  13. Richard is one of those communists who hates America yet refuses to move. Even fat pig Rosie O’Donnell did.

  14. The New York state independent candidate petition has been overcome three times, in 2022 and 2024. It was met by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., in 2024. He didn’t get on the ballot, but that is only because he listed as his residence address a place at which he didn’t actually live. Also Diane Sare of the LaRouche Party got on the ballot for US Senate in both 2022 and 2024.

    The Georgia US House requirement is the only mandatory ballot access petition that has never been used by a minor party. It is true that the Minnesota full party petition has also never been used, but it is not mandatory because there are other ways for minor parties to get on the Minnesota ballot.

    The North Dakota law on how minor parties get on the ballot for legislature was used successfully by the American Party in 1976.

    So by objective standards, the Georgia US House law is the worst in the nation.

  15. Andy, the history of the constitutional convention is very clear that the electoral college was not designed to help low-population states. The worries of the low-population states were solved early in the convention, but the provision that each state has 2 US Senators. The electoral college was just about the last item the founders worked on, and they did it to keep the slave states happy. We know a lot about the proceedings of the constitutional convention and this is what the people who have studied it say.

  17. PRE-1776 BRIT ROT CARRIED INTO BRIT COLONIES- LATER USA STATES.
    —-
    ANTI-DEMOCRACY MINORITY RULE GERRYMANDER MATH 001 – MINI INFO

    1/2 OR LESS VOTES X 1/2 RIGGED CRACKED/PACKED GERRYMANDER AREAS = 1/4 OR LESS CONTROL
    = MINORITY RULE OLIGARCHY – OFTEN WITH LAWLESS MONARCH TYRANTS.

    SUPER WORSE EXTREMIST PRIMARY MATH.

    MAJOR RESULT — THE LAWLESS TYRANT EXECS / JUDICS MAKING DEFACTO SPECIAL INTEREST GANG LAWS VIA EXEC ORDERS / COURT OPINIONS.
    —–
    ANTI-DEMOCRACY MINORITY RULE GERRYMANDER GOVTS —

    USA GOVT, ALL 50 STATE GOVTS AND MANY LOCAL GOVTS.

    USA CONST SUBVERTED — I-2 MAJORITY + MINORITY REPRESENTATION FROM EACH STATE [USA REPS] / 4-4 RFG [STATES/LOCALS] / 14-1 AMDT EP CL [ALL].
    REMEDIES—

    1. NOOO PRIMARIES.

    2. PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION – P.R. —

    TOTAL VOTES / TOTAL MEMBERS = EQUAL VOTES TO ELECT EACH MEMBER IN LEGISLATIVE BODIES. [TOVTOM METHOD]

    3. NONPARTISAN EXECS/JUDICS VIA APPROVAL VOTING.

    4. T-O-T-A-L SEPARATION OF POWERS.

  23. DOI — ELECTION/GOVT PARTS

    https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript
    Declaration of Independence
    ***
    But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
    ***
    He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
    He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
    He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
    He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
    ***
    He has combined with others [BRIT HACKS IN BRIT PARLIAMENT] to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
    ***
    For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
    For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
    ***
    In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
    Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. ***
    We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
    —–
    N-O-W — TYRANT TRUMP AND HIS NONSTOP EFFORTS TO GET A-L-L GOVT POWERS UNDER HIS TOTAL CONTROL.

  26. ALSO BRITS VS SPAIN –

    TO CAUSE SPANISH EMPIRE TO LATER ROT IN CENTRAL / SOUTH AMERICA

  27. @Andy:

    1) “The founders did not want a federal district having too much power.” How would having representatives give them “too much power”? Right now they have none. If they had representatives they’d have 1/435 of the power of the house. And 2/102 of the senate. An alternative is to at least give them a representatives and no senators.

    2) “The founders set up a system where the states elect the President”… this was ultimately a necessity not a desire. It was nearly impossible to honestly communicate the results of a national popular election in an era where there was no electricity and communications took days or weeks, not seconds. State allocation of electors, who then voted in the electoral college (in their respective state capitals), which were then (and still are) mailed to congress for tally in January, made things easier for an era where instantaneous communications didn’t exist. Much like the House of Representatives are state elections, who then travel to the capital, the electoral college is effectively a House of Representatives that acts as representatives for the voters but solely to elect the president. We now have the technology to skip the middle man (electors) for presidential elections.

    “This was meant to not concentrate too much power in high population areas.” This has thoroughly been dispelled. With winner take all elector allocation cities, still predominately determine who will win the state’s electors.

  32. It’s sad to see an intelligent person like Mr. Winger attempting to talk sensibly to those with IQs lower than that of amoeba. But it is his own fault for not allowing only comments he approved being posted.

  35. X is also troll moron AIden James. It assesses its own iq harshly, but not necessarily inaccurately.

  36. A troll moron like AIden James wouldn’t know sensible if it had a head and sensible were slapped upside it.

  37. Why do so many troll morons, spambots, and cranks prefer insulting and talking past each other to suggesting their own three top priorities to have a better government?

  38. It would help to consider how government has changed over 250 years.

    1) scale matters.

    250 years ago, the US had 2-3 million people, most of whom could not vote. Females coulda not vote. Non-Whites by and large could not vote. Those under 21, which was then perhaps half the population or more, could not vote. Those who did not demonstrate a stake in the community by living there long enough and owning property could not vote. Very few of the voters were not devout church going Christian heads of households with children. The vast majority were competent gun owners and self-employed, primarily as farmers. Most of the remaining voters worked for small businesses, usually owned by family, friends, or neighbors they knew well.

    Social welfare and schools were generally run by churches and extended family and neighbors, not government. Big cities had maybe 50,000 people at most in the largest of them. The vast majority lived rurally and with extended family.

    Most government that did exist was at the state and local levels . Most people primarily thought of government in those terms, not federal.

    With thirteen states and only a few hundred thousand voters, there were on average only low tens of thousands of voters per state. That means only a few hundred voters per state representative, which was more important than federal or executive office to most voters.

    Even federal congressional representatives only represented tens of thousands of people at most, of whom perhaps only a few thousand were voters.

    In all these respects, our government has evolved in very much the wrong direction, much to our detriment, and a balancing correction of course is long overdue, as in righting a keeling ship.

    The first reform is to break up the US into about 3,000 countries about the size of the average county. Perhaps along county lines for the most part, except that counties under 10k in population could consolidate and those over a million be broken up further.

    The second reform is to limit voting as it was limited 250 years ago and then limit it some more until only about one in a thousand people can vote.

    I’ll get into a third reform and way of keeping things from spiraling out of control as nvm before in a follow-up comment.

  39. @RW,

    The Constitutional Convention was an extra-constitutional exercise that had the effect of overturning the legitimate government of the United States (sic, plural noun). Its meetings were in secret. There were no minutes. One of the few times that the presiding officer, George Washington, spoke was to admonish a delegate for leaving papers in the hall where they might be discovered by the press.

    The Constitution does not envision the President as being a demigod elected by popular election. The presiding officer of a meeting is responsible for maintaining order, ensuring established rules and procedures are followed, managing discussions, and keeping the proceedings fair and efficient.

    Duties of the President: (1) Require the opinion of the principal officer of each executive department upon any subject relating to the duties of their respective offices; (2) Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons; (3) To make treaties subject to the advice and consent of the Senate; (4) Nominate ambassadors, SCOTUS judges, etc., subject to advice and consent of the Senate; (5) Provide the Congress information of the State of the Union; (6) On extraordinary occasions convene Congress (the last such occasion was in 1948); (7) take care that the laws be faithfully executed; (8) commission all officers of the United States; (9) Veto legislation of the Congress subject to a 2/3 override; and (10) the power I skipped above.

    The full scheme in the 1787 Constitution had presidential electors voting for two individuals with the House deciding among the Top 5 if no person received a majority, with state delegates voting as a unit.

  40. The third reform I would suggest is to make laws radically more simple – any competent adult or postpubescent child should be reasonably able to memorize and fully understand their entirety, and doing so should be one of the prerequisites for voting, among other things.

    These laws should be very difficult, but not impossible, to change. Say, a 7/8 supermajority in seven subsequent elections, for instance. I think that would ensure laws would be changed rarely.

    Laws should cover mala in se crimes. Punishment should be sure, swift, severe, and not cost taxpayers money or generate great profit so as to encourage corrupt false conviction. Compensatory justice should be a guiding principle wherever possible. Swift, public execution should be the default punishment for the most severe crimes. Public corporal punishment, public humiliation, and indentured servitude should also be common punishments for serious crimes.

    Less serious crimes and disputes should be resolved within households, by arbitration, church and neighborhood councils, etc, without resorting to formal law.

    Government should be limited to territorial defense, border control, and ensuring law and order against mala in se crimes. It can be funded with voluntary contributions of money, time, and in kind donations, border crossing fees for both people and goods, poll taxes on voters, and if necessary – I don’t think it will be – head taxes on all persons.

  42. @Stanley,

    Is your first reform that Emperor Stanley should break the United States into 3000 countries? If not Emperor Stanley, then who?

  45. The last thing we need is Emperor Stanley. I expect devolution of government to happen organically, preferably without major violence, as when the USSR and Czechoslovakia broke up. Yugoslavia dissolved somewhat more dangerously, as did the former British, French, Spanish, etc empires, but dissolve they did, as have any number of overgrown governments, with varying degrees of chaos, throughout history.

    The first logical step would be to dissolve the union of States. At that point, they would all still be too big, and almost all past the million person mark that I think should be the outer limit of how large a rationally governed nation state should ever get. It would then make sense to dissolve them further, but I’m only suggesting one way that might organize itself.

    What would be Jim Riley’s top three changes for government?

  46. Standing count is a solution. I didn’t include it because we were only given three changes to make in this thought exercise.

    Providing it’s one of Steve’s top three proposals, what would be the other two?

  47. Rancorously was what I typed, although Google’s self imposed suggestion of dangerously isn’t entirely off course.

  48. Important features of the original design of uS government were election of federal Senators, and in most cases of presidential electors, by State legislatures. Those would be good incremental reforms to bring back if it takes long to dissolve the union, or to implement the equivalent of at the state level when the union of States is at last dissolved.

  49. I think an emperor would want consolidated and expanded giant and if possible global government with more powers over everything and anything, not an extremely limited form of minimal government in numerous independent microstates throughout the world.

  50. My top 3 incremental measures would be to repeal the 14th, 17th, and 19th amendments, along with about a dozen others.

  51. 2% of a closely divided Senate is a lot of power. At most, DC voters can retrocede to Maryland.

  52. The 16th amendment should be high on the repeal list, and the 18 to 20 year old vote with it.

  53. Low population states get two electors each. This is important, and by design.

  54. The most important reform is to ban all AZ Spambots from posting links to our woke Pedo Wikipedia.

  55. “Dave, the people that pore over the minutes of the convention.”

    Can you name them? Details, please.

  56. I’m glad President Trump is a Liberator and not a tyrant, or I’d already be deprogrammed, by programmer would be in jail or dead, and this site would be offline.

  57. Thank God for the Patriot Front!

  58. “Andy, the history of the constitutional convention is very clear that the electoral college was not designed to help low-population states. The worries of the low-population states were solved early in the convention, but the provision that each state has 2 US Senators. The electoral college was just about the last item the founders worked on, and they did it to keep the slave states happy. We know a lot about the proceedings of the constitutional convention and this is what the people who have studied it say.”

    That’s not true. I notice Richard Winger never named them. Some revisionist woke distorted history propagandists have made this suggestion, but it’s far from being some sort of consensus. Concerns of smaller states were addressed in more than one way, and even if they did save the best for last – which is far from certain – so what?

    Slave States at that time included NY and NJ. The five non slave states had all ended legal chattel slavery within 5-10 years and all still profited from it greatly.

  59. “The New York state independent candidate petition has been overcome three times, in 2022 and 2024. It was met by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., in 2024. He didn’t get on the ballot, but that is only because he listed as his residence address a place at which he didn’t actually live. Also Diane Sare of the LaRouche Party got on the ballot for US Senate in both 2022 and 2024.”

    Rfk Jr had a lot of money. Diane Sare had the LaRouche cult. Either one could have overcome the Georgia US house ballot access barrier if it was important enough to them. Objective facts can often be used to paint a misleading picture.

  60. “What people said that? Communists?”

    Yes, whether admitted once or not.

  61. In the entire history of the United States there has been only ONE candidate for President who obtained a majority of the popular vote for President, and failed to win the electoral college: Samuel Tilden in 1876. Tilden actually had a majority of the electors as well on election night, but several of them were removed by selective disqualifications.

    In every other election in which a second place popular vote winner lost the electoral college, there was NO candidate who had a majority of of the popular vote: they ALL had mere pluralities: that LESS THAN 50% for all of you who are mathematically challenged.

    The fact of the matter is that in all of those elections, the electoral college functioned as a run-off election, by default. If you want “better: results (i.e results in which a candidate must win 50% of the popular vote), the states (especially the swing states) must institute some sort of run-off voting.

  62. You forgot AIGoreRhythm and Killary Klingon, so that’s three. Thank God for the electoral college or they would have been POTUSes. That would have been a huge disaster and probably the end of the country and even human life.

  67. RF said:

    “You forgot AIGoreRhythm and Killary Klingon, so that’s three”

    Nope. look at the numbers.

    HG said:

    “They didn’t get majority.”

    Bingo.

  68. “What 3 reforms would WZ most like to see?”

    Well, I have several, but the 3 that I think would be most useful, and easy to implement because they don’t require amending the Constitution:

    1. Adopting the Wyoming Rule to apportion representatives in Congress.

    2. Requiring run-off voting in elections for Congress, and recommending that states (especially swing states) adopt run-off voting for Presidential electors.

    3. Abolishing the requirement for single member districts in the HoR.

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