7-Elections: Drink to your candidates!

Ooohh! Summer's getting hot! And so is the Philippines as we swing into full election mode! Everybody's in it now from the office mate who can't help but forward you the latest hogwash about your candidate to the street sweeper who still has their old Gloria-adorned shirt when she tried to muscle her way in for a 2nd term last 2004. Yes, we're all into politics here in this country, and we can discuss them for hours and still feel productive--yes, even those who never vote anyway.

Don't even get me started on the surveys commissioned left and right. Yes, I've enough of a scientific mind to appreciate the concept, and maybe the use of these tools, but they're just that, tools. People flaunt surveys here like they were the elections itself. And why do we never see the study itself? What sort of questions were asked? Who were asked? Heck in all my years of hearing about these surveys, I've yet to be surveyed. I'm not sure I even know anyone who's been asked in a survey. And really, you can answer anything you want in a survey, but vote someone else entirely come election day. So forgive me if I don't give it much weight at all. In fact, I feel that surveys are pretty destructive in that it conditions peoples mind far more than it gauges it.

So I suppose I can be forgiven for feeling some trepidation when I heard that 7-Eleven is launching their own nationwide poll to see who people prefered to be president. What could they hope to achieve? I prematurely dismissed it as silly and stupid. Oh how wrong I was.

7-Eleven's 7-Elections isn't exactly a survey, at least not in the sense we're familiar with--and they're not trying to pass it off as such. What happens is really quite simple, you get to "vote" for your candidate by buying a 16oz. Gulp using a cup that bears the face of whoever it is you want.

Here we have Noynoy, Gibo and Villar sporting their campaign colors.

Here we have Dick and Erap rounding off the top 5 candidates who will have their own cup.

Don't be disheartened if your choice isn't one of those 5, because they also have cup that shows the faces of the other 5, Acosta, JC delos Reyes, Jamby, Nick Perlas and Brother Eddie Villaueva including your right to abstain or defer choosing for now.

Each candidate's cup has a unique barcode that allows each store to record your choice.

Sure it's not scientific, it's still a bit silly seeing as it won't affect the outcome of the elections at all, it's probably going to be skewed towards Class B-C markets inclination, it doesn't differentiate voting age or if the person participating is even registered. And yes, you can vote as many times as you want.

Here's the result of a trial run done at the press launch where the number of respondents were 55. Pretty interesting results huh?

So what's the point? Well, the way I see it, regardless of the validity of it's results, it creates awareness anyway. It's fun, the cups are cool and you know your vote is counted. 7-Eleven in it's 7-Elections website will allow you to track your vote via the receipt, and see if it was indeed counted, and they would even allow you to monitor the trends in different areas all over country wherever 7-Elevens are located. Interestingly, 7-Elections done in the US the last 3 presidential race actually mirrored the results! I'm not saying it will here, but at the very least it would an be interesting sport of sorts and it won't even cost you extra!

I know where I'm getting my drinks this summer.


Polls open on March 10 and ends on May 4, 2010. Go out and gulp now!