Free State Project

The Free State Project (FSP) is a American political movement which aims to move 20,000 libertarian activists to the state of New Hampshire so that they can have greater influence on local and state affairs. When 20,000 people have registered for the Project, all the registrants move to New Hampshire within five years. At the time of writing, 8,674 people are registered participants in the project and 575 have already moved. In 2007, the Free State Project had a "First 1000" pledge to get people to sign up to move before the end of 2008.

The project was founded by Jason Sorens, a PhD candidate in Political Science at Yale University, who set up an online vote to determine which state was to be chosen from a short list of: Alaska, Delaware, Idaho (U.S. state), Maine, Montana, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota , Vermont and Wyoming. New Hampshire came first and Wyoming came second.

Those who have moved to the state then conduct activism in whatever way they feel best supports their political goals: for some this will be direct lobbying, running for office, raising funds or supporting a political party like the Libertarian Party, while for others they may take part in civil disobedience or organising protests. The Project is not secessionist (or anti-secessionist), there are people involved who would advocate leaving the United States, something for which the New Hampshire constitution allows.

The Project is one of a number of similar movements: Free State Wyoming is an independent project of people who wanted to move to Wyoming rather than New Hampshire, Christian Exodus is a secessionist movement to get Christian fundamentalists to move to South Carolina. The have also been people in Europe discussing whether or not a project similar to the FSP would be possible within the European Union.