The size of legislative districts could be important to us in two ways: 1) physical size, 2) number of inhabitants.
Physical Size
Some argue that only states with geographically smaller districts should be considered because smaller districts make campaigning easier, allowing activists to reach the voters with less time and effort. This is an interesting consideration; however, it assumes that larger districts will either have more people in them, or that the majority of the people will be spread far apart from one another. This is not necessarily the case though.
Wyoming has some geographically large districts, and it would indeed take some time and effort to cover them completely; however, it should be noted that these districts are often so large because they encompass vast areas of uninhabited land. As discussed previously, most of Wyoming's population is gathered in clusters such as the Cheyenne and Casper areas. This means that we will be able to reach the majority of Wyoming's voters without having to travel across enormous areas. Thus, Wyoming's geographically large districts will not present a barrier to our effectiveness.
Number of Inhabitants
The next consideration involves the number of inhabitants in a district because it is assumed that a smaller number of voters will be easier for us to influence. For that reason, a district with 3,000 inhabitants is assumed to be preferable to a district with 10,000.
How do the FSP candidate states measure up on district size by inhabitants?
The following data is from Joe Swyer's Analysis of State Legislatures:
Number of people per representative district.
VT & NH have some mult-seat districts and all of SD, ND house districts are 2-seaters.
3,089 to 42,586 New Hampshire (some multi-seat districts 400 reps for 1,235,786 people)
4,059 to 8,118 Vermont (some 2-seat districts and 150 reps for 608,827 people)
8,230 Wyoming (60 reps for 493,782 people)
8,443 Maine (151 reps for 1,274,923 people)
9,022 Montana (100 reps for 902,195 people)
13,106 North Dakota (2-seat districts and 98 reps for 642,200 people)
15,673 Alaska (40 reps for 626,932 people)
19,112 Delaware (41 reps for 783,600 people)
21,567 South Dakota (2-seat districts and 70 reps for 754,844 people)
36,962 Idaho (2-seat districts and 70 reps for 1,293,653 people)
Number of people per state Senate district:
1. North Dakota - 13,489
2. Wyoming - 16,634
3. Montana - 18,180
4. South Dakota - 21,743
5. Alaska - 32,200
6. Maine - 37,000
7. Idaho - 38,314
8. Delaware - 38,429
9. Vermont - 47,462
10. New Hampshire - 53,125
From these statistics, we can see that Wyoming has the third smallest House districts, the second smallest Senate districts, and the second smallest districts overall. Combining small district size with term limits and a clustered population gives Wyoming a decided advantage for our purposes.
The District Debate
Lately, a dispute has arisen over whether New Hampshire's or Wyoming's districts are actually smaller in terms of the number of people in them. A few simple statistics should make this clear. Wyoming has 60 House districts of 8,230 people each. New Hampshires's districts break down as follows:
1 with 42,586 people.
1 with 38,821 people.
5 with 32,479 to 35,509 people.
1 with 27,918 people.
6 with 24,304 to 24,967 people.
4 with 21,559 to 22,563 people.
7 with 17,712 to 19,254 people.
6 with 14,930 to 16,062 people.
14 with 11,846 to 12,797 people.
24 with 8,846 to 9,704 people.
14 with 5,967 to 6,413 people.
5 with 2,982 to 3,208 people.