• Senator Barack Obama received 52.92% of the popular vote while Senator John McCain received 45.67% of the popular vote. This compares to 2004 when President George Bush received 50.74% of the popular vote while Senator John Kerry received 48.27% of the popular vote.
• In terms of the total vote count, Obama received 69,456,884 votes while McCain received 59,934,813 votes. This is remarkable because Obama won this election by about 9 and a half million votes. For comparison’s sake, Bush received 62,040,610 votes in 2004 while Kerry received 59,028,444 votes.
• In total, there were 131,237,589 votes cast in 2008 versus 122,267,553 votes cast in 2004. This represents an increase of 8,970,036 votes in 2008 than in 2004.
• The total voter turnout as a percentage of eligible voters was approximately 63%. This percentage is the highest voter turnout since 1960, when 64.8% of eligible voters turned out.
• The increased “youth” vote only represented one additional percentage point in the overall voter turnout. In other words, the youth vote increased by only 1,312,376 votes – certainly not the huge bump that everyone expected

So there is an updated look at the 2008 voter turnout in comparison to the 2004 voter turnout. The 2008 was still an historic election and there was a giant leap in voter turnout, but it is worth mentioning that the youth turnout was not as big as was expected – further proving that just because far-left, anti-war, anti-Bush college students received increased coverage during this election season by a liberal national media, their groundswell of activism does not adequately represent the feelings of their peers. That might be the most interesting piece of information coming out of the 2008 election…

Constitution Party presidential candidate Chuck Baldwin and his running mate Darrell Castle wound up with close to 179,000 votes, showing even with no ads and comparatively little media attention, the message of liberty resonated with many.

The tally was a 24% increase over the party’s vote total in 2004. However, this year we were not on the ballot in California or Pennsylvania, and in 2004 those states accounted for 33,000 votes. The Baldwin/Castle ticket even grabbed 3,418 write-in votes in Texas, the highest for any write-in candidate in that state.

While the Constitution Party lists their final tally to be “close to 179,000” votes, Wikipedia lists their total for 2008 as 181,342. Not too bad, really. Both the Libertarians and Ralph Nader finished ahead of the Constitutionalists, but they got a few thousand more votes than the Green Party. More from their message:

In addition to larger percentages of votes, 20 states will remain ballot qualified meaning fewer time-consuming and costly ballot-access campaigns will be necessary going forward. This is a 33% increase over 2004.

Many people do not realize that one of the biggest hurdles that young political parties have to overcome is actually getting on the ballot! You don’t just “wind up” on the ballot – you have to actually collect signatures and petition to be on the ballot in each state. It’s not the easiest process and as the quoted message above alludes to, it’s not an entirely quick process either.

It would appear that the Constitution Party made a decent showing for a third party with no financing and no advertising in the 2008 election. America needs a strong third party at the national level – could it be this one?

Not only is that not an increased voter turnout, but it’s lower than the last election! Sure, there may be some absentee ballots that need to be counted and after a recount here and there the total number of voters in 2008 might go up a few thousand, but even if the total number of votes cast should rise some astronomical number to 125 million, that’s still NOT the bigger turnout that all of the pundits (and the politicians) expected for this election cycle.

This tells us a few things. First, there was NOT some large groundswell of voter motivation to go out and vote in the most historic election of our time. Second, if the electorate remained essentially the same, then the inherent voter apathy in America was not changed in this election (which is a damn shame). Third, those who voted in 2004 and then voted again in 2008 must have been more likely to be open to the idea of voting for a different party. Remember, McCain only lost by about 7 points (or about 8 million votes).

While that is a significant number of voters, let’s hope that history remembers this election in a realistic view. Yes, 2008 was an historic election for any number of reasons – but not for bringing out more voters to the polls or energizing the electorate.

Eminent domain…is the inherent power of the state to seize a citizen’s private property…with due monetary compensation, but without the owner’s consent.

In simpler terms, the process of eminent domain allows the government to take private property so long as they pay you a decent sum for the property. If you dig a little deeper, the property is supposed to taken only to be used for the public good. For example, if you are familiar with Deal Road in Ocean Township, you’ll know that the museum sits towards the end of the road closest to Route 35. You’ll also know that there was some road work performed to widen Deal Road near the entrance and exit areas of the museum. In order to widen the road, the township had to acquire some two or three feet of a homeowner’s lawn. The homeowner cried eminent domain abuse, but no one listened because this is exactly what the law is in place to do!

However, you may have heard the cry of eminent domain abuse in connection with some other developments along the Jersey Shore (or whatever neck of the woods you’re in). In the City of Long Branch, for example, the MTOTSA (Marine Terrace, Ocean Terrace, and Seaview Avenue residents’ association) fought against Long Branch’s designation of their properties as “blighted.” And you know what? They won.

Due to my current and immediately former employment situations, I’ve worked with many organizations that work both for and against the use of eminent domain. The biggest common denominator that I’ve found in every discussion is the lack of understanding of what eminent domain is all about. In fact, I HAVE uncovered many cases of eminent domain abuse…but in the opposite direction – where homeowners have literally extorted development companies who wanted to acquire small parcels of land for developments. It’s gross, really.

Anyway, the people of MTOTSA fought a valiant fight and I’m glad that they won. Their property was NOT blighted and for Long Branch to call it blighted – so it could building another multi-million dollar development on the beachfront – is a bastardization of the eminent domain laws. Some people argue that taking these properties was in the “public’s best interests” because it could generate tax revenues many multiples in excess of what it currently generates. Yet there is no discussion of the increased costs associated with high-density development. The idea is that with higher tax revenues from this one part of town, the rest of the town’s property taxes would be lowered.

One only needs to look at Pier Village (right down the street from the MTOTSA area) to see that you can have all of the tourists in the world coming to your area, but it does not guarantee that the increased revenues will lead to lower taxes. Long Branch’s property taxes went UP this year! And that’s including all of the excess revenue coming from Pier Village. Talk about being sold a bill of goods…

Congratulations to the MTOTSA organization for scoring a well-deserved victory in a very tough fight!