States have sovereignty separate from the federal government. Tribal nations have limited sovereignty from federal government. Territories do not have any sover

States have sovereignty separate from the federal government. Tribal nations have limited sovereignty from federal government. Territories do not have any sovereignty from the federal government - they basically are the same entity. Since the federal government was created by and is formed by sovereign states, no, territorial landholdings of that federal government don’t have a role. Think about them like a city relative to a state. Or perhaps like the frontier - they are lands held by the country, underdeveloped, and depending on sophistication of population, may or may not have organized local governments - and in those cases, yes, people vote for their own local government. When you think of the “wild west” those were territories that eventually achieved statehood. Or Alaska. People born in those territories (US Nationals) can move to US states to live and work, or continue to live in the “frontier”. And trust me, there are aspects of living in the frontier that make it “freer” than living in a state - basically that people give less of a shit what goes on out there if they even know where “there” is. Some territories (like Marshall Islands) elect not to become states but to become sort of quasi protectorates for lack of a better term - having their own internationally recognized sovereignty as independent nations but in tight alliance with and under the defensive umbrella of the US. At risk of pushing too many analogies, saying the US is less democratic because territories don’t have the same rights as states would be like saying your country is less democratic for not letting adolescents vote in elections. Well, maybe that’s true in strictest sense of the term, but then “full democracy” by that definition is not really anyone’s ideal. Perfectly pure systems for their own sake are usually not a desirable end outside of thought experiments.