Take the example of New Hampshire's largest district: 42,586 people. This district has fourteen representatives in order to meet the New Hampshire Supreme Court's mandate of one representative for every 3,089 people; however, each candidate that runs for one of those fourteen available seats runs for election among all 42,586 people. By comparison, no one who runs for office in one of Wyoming's House districts runs among any more than 8,230 people. Wyoming has sixty such 8,230 person districts, while sixty-nine of New Hampshire's eighty-eight total districts have 8,846 or more persons.
Clearly, more Wyoming candidates run in smaller districts than New Hampshire candidates, and in most cases, much smaller districts.
Here's that list of New Hampshire districts again:
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.
New Hampshire proponents respond to this by saying that New Hampshire's multi-member districts really do make it easier to elect representatives. As an example, they cite New Hampshire's one 42,586 person district and point out that there are a total of fourteen seats available in this district during an election year. This means that an FSP'er could run for office, come in fourteenth place, and still win a seat in the legislature. By comparison, they say that FSP'ers will only be able to win seats in Wyoming by coming in first in an election.
For this reason, New Hampshire proponents claim that their multi-seat districts will make it easier to elect FSP'ers to the legislature.
There is a significant problem here though, and Joe Swyers addresses it well based on his State Legislatures report. According to that research, the represenative who won 14th place in New Hampshire's 42,586 person district still had to get more votes to win than the top vote-getters in other states:
"That state rep, Alan Bemis, had to get 5,244 votes to win 14th place. That is more votes than any of the reps in Vermont, Maine, or Wyoming had to get to win. The top vote getter in Vermont was Ann Seibert who got 2,826 to win. The top vote getter in Maine was Terrence McKenney who got 4,445 and in Wyoming it was Mark Semlek who got 3,486 (both were uncontested and thus would have gotten less if they had had opposition. (NH had 17 unopposed House seats))."
Using research from that same report, it was pointed out that sixty-nine candidates in New Hampshire won House seats with only third place wins; however, it should also be noted that twenty-three of those sixty-nine reps required more votes to win their third place seats than the top vote getter in Wyoming which was Mark Semlek who came in first with 3,486 votes. The significance of this is two-fold: 1) It has been demonstrated that first place seats can won in Wyoming with fewer votes than it requires to win third place seats in New Hampshire. 2) Had those twenty-three New Hampshire legislators been in Wyoming, they could have all won first place seats and, if so, they would have had twenty-three seats in Wyoming's sixty seat House - eight seats shy of a majority! In New Hampshire's 400 member House, those sixty-nine third place winners would have been 132 seats shy of a majority!
Thus, there is significant reason to believe that it will be easier for the FSP to build a legislative majority in Wyoming than in New Hampshire in spite of being able to win New Hampshire House seats with less than 1st place.
How Many Seats Required for a Legislative Majority?
Here is how many seats it would take to win legislative majorities in our candidate states:
Alaska: House: 21 Senate: 11 Total: 31 seats
Delaware: House: 21 Senate: 11 Total: 31 seats
Idaho/South Dakota: House: 36, Senate: 18, Total: 54 seats
Wyoming: House: 31, Senate: 26, Total: 57 seats
North Dakota: House: 48, Senate: 24, Total: 72 seats
Montana: House: 51, Senate: 26, Total: 77 seats
Vermont: House: 76, Senate: 16, Total: 92 seats
Maine: House: 76, Senate: 18, Total: 94 seats
New Hampshire: House: 201, Senate: 13, Total: 214 seats