[Nfbwv-talk] Interesting PAC Statistic...

[Smyth, Charlene R]

Marcus, 

This is great!!!  I have always wondered about this but never took the
time to figure it out.  You should share it with Scott.  

Charlene


-----Original Message-----
From: Nfbwv-talk [mailto:nfbwv-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of
Marcus Soulsby
Sent: Thursday, October 11, 2012 7:28 PM
To: 'NFB of West Virginia Discussion List'
Subject: [Nfbwv-talk] Interesting PAC Statistic...

Folks,

Speaking of PAC...

As PAC Coordinator, I have seen many lists of rankings come by and often
wondered how each state ranks in other ways besides just raw dollar
amounts, as the National lists them.  Like many of you, I am aware that
it seems like the larger (and perhaps wealthier) states enjoy a major
advantage in these rankings.  So I got my wheels turning.  

One day I started wondering about what is an affiliate's rate of what I
call "absolute participation" - that is, how well are they doing on the
list regardless of their state's population?  So I decided to sit down
an whittle out this little chart (attached above) that simply takes each
state/terrirory's current population (2010 census) and divide that by
the number of PAC participants in that state.  Then, to save a lot of
zeros, I divided again by 1 million to get the PPPP *PAC Participants
Par Population)
to see the number of PAC pledges per million in that state.   

In other words, the PPPP (last column) is the number of PAC participants
per million people a state/affiliate claims.

As you can see, the list yields very different results than the usual
order and pattern of states as we are accustomed to seeing them.  You
may be surprised where we and some other affiliates land here.,

(NITE:  In case you were wondering, for states with less than a million,
the math still works out.  For example, if a state like Vermont has
500,000 people and 3 participants, their PPPP comes out to 6, because
that is what they would have if they had a million, all other things
constant.)

Just thought this might be interesting.  I had used numbers that came
out before this month's release so they aren't the most current, but
still something to ponder.