After a long and necessary hiatus, Dancing With the Stars returned last week and announced there will be some big changes this season.

And the biggest change of all should make half of country livid.

The new plan that DWTS has come up with is to allow only viewers in the Eastern and Central time zones to vote ‘live.”

If you’re in the Mountain or Pacific time zones, you’re out of luck.

Your votes are unimportant UNLESS you just randomly vote for your favorite couple, before the show actually airs in your time zone, without ever seeing their dance routine for the week.

What an awful plan that basically tells half the country “you don’t matter to us.”

“It does seem counter-intuitive for a competition show contingent on audience participation to exclude such a large portion of the American public,” said Matt Roush of TV Insider. “Theoretically, you could vote for a favorite team — from the week before, although your vote won’t be responding to what’s happening live, unless you’re watching from a satellite or pirated signal.”

The producers and executives who came up with this REGIONALLY BIASED voting system should be fired.

It’s that serious.

What TV show in 2019 would recommend half of their viewers find an illegal way to participate in their show?

Can you imagine a presidential election where the east coast gets to vote but not the west coast?

It’s just a really, really bad idea and could mark the final beginning of the end to this aging reality TV show.

Of course, these are the same people who thought casting Sean Spicer was a “great idea.”

[READ: DWTS Host Tom Bergeron SLAMS Decision To Cast Former Trump Mouthpiece]

And the way the voting is now rigged should help favor Spicer (with DC and Republican southern votes).

Host Tom Bergeron posted a lengthy statement explaining how he had met with DWTS new executive producer (Andrew Llinares) to make his feelings known about Spicer and he left their lunch “convinced we were in agreement.”

“Subsequently (and rather obviously),” Bergeron wrote, “a decision was made to, as we often say in Hollywood, ‘go in a different direction.’”

Some thoughts about today pic.twitter.com/aCQ4SHrGCI — Tom Bergeron (@Tom_Bergeron) August 21, 2019

Llinares decision to ignore the solid advice of Bergeron and rig votes in favor Spicer’s “campaign” (when he clearly can’t dance) should be investigated by the FCC.

Producers have announced they are giving judges Len Goodman, Bruno Tonioli and Carrie Ann Inaba more control so that “popular” contestants, who make a mockery of dancing (see Bobby Bones), will hopefully be eliminated before it’s too late.

But the #1 thing JimHeath.TV and others recommended to DWTS producers last year has apparently been ignored.

The show premiered its new season last Monday to a 1.0 rating and just under 8 million total viewers.

It lost out in the key 18-49 demographic.

The show has faced a decline in 18-49 ratings over the past two cycles, falling 32% from an average of 1.37 in 2017 to 0.93 in 2018 season.

Telling half the country they can’t participate, by rigging the votes with regional bias, is never going to help those falling ratings.