Some of you have seen these statistics and thoughts before, and, if so, then you probably already have established an opinion on the matter. However, many have joined since our intitial discussions of population, and this essay is primarily directed to their attention.
Population was the measurement by which the call for 20,000 activists was made, and the primary measurement by which the FSP first selected its candidate states.
In his essay What Can 20,000 Liberty Activists Accomplish? FSP president Jason Sorens revealed that the FSP's target participation level of 20,000 activists (as well as the slate of candidate states) was chosen based on the example of Quebec's Parti Quebecois, which achieved a parliamentary majority in Quebec in 1976:
Jason wrote:
"At the time, the PQ had a paid membership of roughly 100,000, while the population of Quebec at that time was 6.2 million. In other words, having a paid member for every 62 citizens of the province gave the PQ a parliamentary majority. Applying the same ratio to the FSP's membership goal, we get 1.2 million population for a state in which 20,000 party members could win majorities at the state level. The following states have less than 1.2 million population: Wyoming, Alaska, North Dakota, Vermont, South Dakota, Delaware, Montana, Rhode Island (Hawaii, Idaho, New Hampshire, and Maine are close)."
Thus, we see here that the first consideration in framing the FSP was to target smaller population states so that FSP activists could achieve at least a 1 to 62 saturation level in regard to the overall population of that state. This only makes sense. If you are attempting to influence the political process with a group of like-minded individuals, it is advantageous for that group to be as large as possible in relation to the target state's population. This gives you a larger percentage of the vote to count on, enables you to reach more of the population because there are fewer of them to reach in relation to your activists, and reduces the degree to which activist attrition could harm your efforts.
Thus, if we consider 1 FSP activist per every 62 state residents to be an ideal number, how do our candidate states measure up?
In 2000, the candidate states ranked as follows in terms of total population:
Wyoming - 493,782
Vermont - 608,827
Alaska - 626, 932
North Dakota - 642,200
South Dakota - 754,844
Delaware - 783,600
Montana - 902,195
New Hampshire - 1,235,786
Maine - 1,274,923
Idaho - 1,293,953
If we divide each state's total population by 20,000 activists, we get the following ratios:
1 FSP Activist to ? State Residents
Wyoming - 1 to 24.5
Vermont - 1 to 30.4
Alaska - to 31.3
North Dakota - 1 to 32.1
South Dakota - 1 to 37.7
Delaware - 1 to 39.2
Montana - 1 to 45.1
New Hampshire - 1 to 61.8
Maine - 1 to 63.8
Idaho - 1 to 64.7
But say that we don't get 20,000 participants. With, say, only 15,000 participants, we get the following:
Wyoming: 1 to 33
Vermont - 1 to 40.6
Alaska - 1 to 41.8
North Dakota - 1 to 42.8
South Dakota - 1 to 50.3
Delaware - 1 to 52.2
Montana - 1 to 60.1
New Hampshire: 1 to 82.4
Maine: 1 to 85
Idaho: 1 to 86.3