NASHUA -- Though their efforts to get 20,000 liberty-minded people to move to New Hampshire have stalled, organizers of the Free State Project aren't giving up.

Three years after 5,454 members chose New Hampshire as their home base for furthering the ideals of bare-bones government, the group has fallen far short of its goal of having 20,000 people ready to move to the state by 2007. To date, about 7,500 people have agreed to relocate to a state that offers not only the possibility to spread libertarian ideals, but also a dearth of economic opportunities.

"If we knew the answer to the question on how to get to 20,000 by the end of 2006, we would have done that," said Free State Project Director Varrin Swearingen. "It should go without saying no one has done anything like this before, so we're inventing the wheel. It's not an easy task."

Free Staters aren't obligated to pack their bags until the 20,000 milestone is reached, and anyone who held second thoughts has been allowed to slip out of the pledge, Swearingen said. He emphasized that 2006 wasn't a target set in stone but a loose goal.

More than 100 pledge signers, including Swearingen, didn't wait and have moved to New Hampshire, he said.

Although he believes his savings in taxes has paid for his move from California to Keene, he acknowledges doing so was no small feat.

"There is a significant impediment to moving," he said. "There are real issues to deal with; it can be tough to start over."

Many Free Staters probably have hesitated to leave good jobs, friends, and family, said Mark Wrighton, an associate professor of political science at the University of New Hampshire.

Those living in the south and west may not want to leave regions where population and economic opportunities are growing, he said.

"You're asking people to do something against the trend of where the population movement is," he said. "And it goes against the general trend that people don't stay in New Hampshire. People tend to leave the state and not come back."

No t every member of the project is a libertarian. They espouse a wide spectrum of causes: gun rights, decriminalization of marijuana, and the overriding goal of less government.

Members who live here have made a difference, Swearingen said, by lobbying against a measure that would have banned smoking in restaurants and by helping defeat municipal budgets.

© Copyright 2007 Globe Newspaper Company.