You already live by it. You just don't call it politics.

You ask instead of taking. You make your case instead of forcing it. You let other people run their own lives. Libertarians broadly reject the exceptions most people make for government and elected officials.

146,944 people have answered the World's Smallest Political Quiz since July 1. Each light is thirty of them.

Ten plain questions place each of them by two scores: how much government they want in their personal life, and how much in their livelihood.

Each person lands in one of 121 cells, and each cell belongs to one of five types.

27%

answer like a libertarian: less government in both.

Of 146,944 people who completed the quiz from July 1 to October 26, 2026. They chose to take a political quiz, so they are a self-selected sample, not the country.

12%

of them call themselves libertarian. The rest hold the positions without the word.

Asked before they see their result. The faint gold lights have the positions and not the word.

1.2%

voted for the Libertarian candidate for president.

2020, certified results. This figure is the country, not quiz takers. The ballot has two lines, and a voter who wants both kinds of freedom has to pick one.

A great many people agree on the direction and have never been counted together.

The chart

Each person lands in one of 121 cells according to their two scores, and each cell belongs to one of five types. Move over a cell to read it. This is the chart you can put on your own site.

Move over the chart

Each cell is one pair of scores, personal and economic. Its color is the type the quiz assigns to that pair.

Libertarian
Wants the government to do less in personal life and in the economy both.
Conservative
More freedom in the economy, more control in personal life.
Progressive
More freedom in personal life, more control in the economy.
Authoritarian
More government control in both.
Moderate
Near the middle on both. A bit of each.

If there are this many, where are they?

A fair question. If 27% score libertarian, why does the Libertarian Party get about 1% of the vote? Three answers, all of them in the numbers on this page.

12%

They do not use the word

Of everyone who holds the positions, 12% call themselves libertarian. People do not join, fund or vote for a label they have never applied to themselves. That gap is the reason this site exists: it counts the positions, not the label.

2

The ballot has two lines

American elections are winner-take-all, so they settle into two parties, and neither one stands for both kinds of freedom. One tends to defend your personal life, the other your livelihood. A voter who wants both has to pick which matters more this year, and nearly everyone picks one of the two. That is how 27% can hold libertarian positions while 1.2% vote for the Libertarian candidate. The quiz measures what people believe, not how they vote.

147k

These are quiz takers, not the country

146,944 people who chose to take a political quiz. That is a self-selected sample, not a representative one, so their share is not the country's share. To measure the country, Advocates for Self-Government has commissioned a national survey of American adults. The forthcoming report will print both figures side by side, each labeled.

None of this makes the count smaller. It means a great many people agree on the direction and have never been counted together. Changing that is the one thing this page asks of you.

Add to the count

  • Be countedTake the quiz. Your light joins the crowd the same day, with nothing attached but two scores.
  • Most people who score libertarian have never used the word. Send the quiz to three of them.
  • Count the people around youA live session with a join code, a booth poster with a QR code, or the quiz on your own site. Anyone can host.
  • Report a winA law repealed, a license dropped, a ruling that widened someone's choices. We check it and add it.

Read the count

  • The fifty statesEach scored 0 to 100 on its laws, its quiz takers and its vote, with every part shown.
  • 28 wins on the ledgerBans lifted, permits dropped, rules repealed and rulings won, each sourced and dated.
  • The reportThe State of the Politically Homeless, first edition, with the national survey beside the quiz.
  • How every number was madeWhat it covers, what it leaves out, and the data to download.

Get the count

One email a month with the updated count, and the report the day it publishes. Nothing else, and you can leave any time.