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Free Starbucks Coffee Today For ANYBODY

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in 2008 Election, Good Decisions, Voting

Just got mine a few minutes ago.

Originally they were just going to give it out to voters, and they said as much in this commercial…



However…

They ran into some problems when folks thought they were violating campaign laws by offering incentives for voting.

From Newsweek:

Election laws prevent individuals and organizations from offering monetary incentives to get people to the polls, keeping partisan hacks from bribing potential voters likely to swing their way. Unfortunately for national chains like Starbucks, Krispy Kreme, Ben & Jerry’s and sex-toys emporium Babeland, the definition of “monetary incentive” also includes offers of free stuff like coffee, donuts, ice cream, and, um, a certain sleeve-like contraption called “The Maverick.”

Would anyone actually pursue legal action against such altruistic institutions? Probably not. According to D.C.-based election law expert Kenneth Gross, the offers were neither partisan nor overly generous nor particularly concerned with verifying that customers actually cast votes, all of which makes the undertaking pretty benign in the legal scheme of things. “With or without a tall cup of coffee, I doubt any prosecutor will lose any sleep over this,” he said.

Try to do something nice…

In any event, I’m enjoying mine.

Thanks Starbucks!


This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 4th, 2008 and is filed under 2008 Election, Good Decisions, Voting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

4 Responses to “Free Starbucks Coffee Today For ANYBODY”

  1. Rich Horton Says:
    November 4th, 2008 at 3:18 pm

    Discrimination!

    All you coffee drinkers are happy, but what about us who never touch the stuff???!!!

    My favorite local tavern is closed to boot, due to some barbarous law.

    NO BEER NO PEACE!

    :-)

    Happy election day folks!

    Especially you Justin.

  2. Justin Gardner Says:
    November 4th, 2008 at 3:38 pm

    To you as well Mr. Horton! :-)

  3. Below The Beltway » Blog Archive » Get Free Coffee At Starbucks Today Says:
    November 4th, 2008 at 3:46 pm

    [...] Justin Gardner Related PostsWhat Else I’m [...]

  4. BenG Says:
    November 4th, 2008 at 4:04 pm

    Justin,

    Just think of all the free ads they just received for 20 oz. of free coffee.

    Cheers!

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