Voted in Montana and Other Interesting Ideas

Yesterday I voted for the first time in Montana.  I went over to the fair grounds (basically across the street from me) and entered the voting area.  I knew this was at least one of two polling places (the other being the library).  Inside were at least six precincts set up for voting.

Ok, this is weird.  I'm use to lines and only one precinct per polling place.  Got my ballot, voted and went to put it into the 'machine' to count it.  Nope, one part goes into one locked box and the main ballot goes into a second lock box.  Not at all what I am use to after years of voting in North Carolina and Texas.

Which got me to thinking about numbers.  (Actually, what really got me to thinking was an article about celebrities in Montana and that Ted Turner owns more acres than the population of Montana.)  So I did a little number crunching and was amazed.

Montana is 48th in population in the United States with 1.015 million people over 147,164 square miles.  On the other hand, North Carolina is 28th with 9.848 million people and only 53,819 square miles. The Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area is home to 2,037,430 people.  So Montana is about 3 times as large with only about a tenth of the people.  Sounds good to me so far.

Then I had to be really curious and take a look at the Phoenix area for Savvy.  Arizona is 113,998 square miles with 6.627 million people - almost 6 times that of Montana.  And the Phoenix area is considered the most populous state capital in the United States, with 1.513 people in 517 square miles.  So the population of Montana in a handful of square miles.  No wonder Savvy didn't want to drive there.

Then I got curious and decided to take a look at my old stomping grounds, the Dallas-Fort Worth area.  The 4th largest in the country, this combined 'city' is home to 6,526,548 people, 1.258 million of them in Dallas alone.  So Dallas has almost as many people as the whole state of Montana.

No wonder I love Montana so much!