 On pins and needles awaiting the results of November's election, or falling asleep combing through the latest polling data? The answer might be more convenient than you think. The 7-Eleven chain of stores is running a fourth "7-Election" campaign to predict the winner of the 2012 presidential election. While the method - having customers select either a red Romney or blue Obama cup for their coffee - is decidedly unscientific, the results in previous installments have closely mirrored those of the last two elections, and accurately predicted the winner in all three.
UPC codes are scanned at the register and results are tallied at the end of each day on the campaign's website. 7-Eleven, Inc. President and CEO Joe DePinto said in a press release, “While we have never billed 7-Election as scientific or statistically valid, it is astounding just how accurate this simple count-the-cups poll has been – election after election. We have had a lot of fun with it, and I hope we have encouraged people how important it is to vote in the real election.” Not every state participates in the 7-Election, but an interactive map allows viewers to get specific voting percentages, down to the city level. As for states that traditionally skew blue or red, there are provisions made so a coffee fan doesn't have to jump party lines for their java fix. A spokesperson for the company told Eatocracy that 7-Eleven forecasts the cup’s quantities based on the past elections and makes adjustments where necessary. For those who wish to opt out of advertising their political predilections, 7-Eleven also offers up its regular (“undecided”) cup. Remaining non-partisan might not prove to be the most popular option, though; in each of the past 7-Election polls, more than six million candidate cups were tallied. The chain also offers star-shaped red or blue donuts as running mates with the beverage "ballots" but they only count toward customers' daily sugar intake - not the national tally. Hungry for more election coverage? Head to CNN.com/election or catch up on Eatocracy's tasty campaign trail news Watch CNN Newsroom weekdays 9am to 3pm ET and weekends. For the latest from the CNN Newsroom click here.
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Another prediction: Leader board in this app will determine the winner.
Currently: Donky Party 53.9% 🆚 Elefant Party 46.1%
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJiiCQ24hzA
http://www.prezelectusa.com
Vote vote vote!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Now here's a poll I can believe in!
Forget all of the prognosticating, just vote!
Where are the Johnson cups? the Stein cups? the Goode cups?
Typical corporate two-party bs.
So statistically we can conclude that democrats drink more coffee than republicans.......that is the conclusion here.
"... statistically we can conclude that democrats drink more coffee than republicans..." from 7-11
Yes, they have more hangovers-
Bbbbbbbbbbut Bush!
I think your name should be: Ignorant Teapublican Sheep
Except I doubt they were able to tally the people who purposely got the cup for "the other guy" just for the pleasure of throwing it in the trash a few minutes later.
HA! Or saving it to get rid of the coffee – post consumption.
Where's the Garry Johnson cups? The Jill Stein cups? The Virgil Goode cups?
Seems to me 7-11 only has 2/5 of the candidates for their coffee poll. As such it is not only as biased towards the two bums as the CPD is, but not a valid sample space.
IOW, the whole thing is junk.
Ironic you complain about them listing only "2 of 5" when you're excluding so many yourself. There's more than just 5 if you count every obscure candidate with no chance of winning or relevance.
Where's the Vermin Supreme cup?
After the election, 7-11 will be doing a second campaign in conjunction with Sports Illustrated, where customers will choose the next swimsuit model. The are calling the campaign, "Two Cups, One Girl"...
Booooo. Get off the stage!!!
I had to get my coffee in a red cup, there were no blue ones left ;/
Keep dreaming. Obama has destroyed this country in 4 short years. Were you complaining about gas prices when they went up under Bush for a short period of time? I'm sure you were. Gas was $1.79 per gallon when Bush left office and have gone up 100% over the past 3 1/2 years and you're not complaining?? How liberally hypocritical can you be??
Yep, it's all Barneys fault.
Funny how conservatives forget that gas maxed out at $4.11 per gallon in July 2008... Because the president obviously has so much power over gas prices...
Huh? Bush destroyed this country. Two illegal wars we cant get out of. Gas prices are ALWAYS up and down, and they were higher when your boy was in the WH. Not to mention his butt buddy's Haliburton helping to destroy the gulf with their shoddy work on the Horizon. GW and Cheney RUINED this country and have left the people and the veterans to sort out the mess
Sing it, Baalza!!!
Posted on Let's just say that a good general rule is: Do not dress your child like food. Now I am off to send a link to my lil' bro, who is ntourioosly creeped out by walking, talking food mascots. (I'm thinking Twinkie Man, the talking Parkay butter tub, or that time our county fair's mascot was a talking corn dog.) He's going to have nightmares.And so am I.
Global warming, starvation in Africa, earthquakes, bacon shortage, corn belt drought, tornados, yep, all Obamas' fault !!! Mitt gonna fix everyting. Everyting gonna be alright cause Mitt gonna fix it. No more clouds, sunny all the time. Eveyone going on picnics with flowers in their hair. Hey? Who stole the rest of my crack?????
Agree with you completely. Give him 4 more years and none of us will be able to afford the coffee!
As long as you conservatives keep drinking the Kool-Aid, why are you worried about coffee?
FACT: The United states has one of the lowest prices per gallon for gas outside of the Middle East. I suppose it's Obama's fault that gas is more expensive in every country on the planet? I mean, are you honestly that flipping stupid to think that the US President controls the price of oil? It's a globely traded commodity of which prices are set by the market and futures. Bush had absolutely ZERO control on the price of oil and neither does Obama. Anyone who says otherwise is a flipping idi#t. So what exactly does that say about you, 1Term2Many.....
Gas was higher in 2008 during Bush's watch than it is now. Yes, it did drop at the end of that year but only because demand for fuel dropped. Why did demand drop? Becasue the economy tanked. So you're saying the solution to high gas prices is to tank the economy? Worked for Bush. And it would work for Romney too in the unlikely event he gets elected. Forgive me for opting for a different solution.
Where are most of the 7-11's concentrated? The sampling will obviously show an Obama lean.
Does 7-11 accept EBT cards?
Yes.... because we all know that welfare and food stamps didn't exist before January 20th 2009. *rolls eyes*
Hillbillies are so incompetent, watch them rush to their local 7-11 today to buy Romneycups.
Crude. Bigoted. Lame. You demonstrate all the hallmarks of todays liberal. Bravo.
Interesting. You just made a "joke" about EBT cards (yes, it's that transparent), and now you're whining about decorum?
Read it, the EBT card comment was made by someone else. Can the left even read any more?
Typical for the far left party of hate though to resort to personal attacks. Can't get you people out of office soon enough.
Typical for the Far Right to to over react and flip out over a simple mistake. Can you people calmly do anything anymore?
Apparently the ignorant would rather jump to a conclusion than find out the facts. Why else would Larry the Cable Guy have so many right-winged fans?
BTW, freakin', the EBT comment was made by William. Go back under your rock. Your Cheetos are getting stale.
@ Blah blah the wheel's off your trailer–name calling makes you seem so much more competent than those you insult.
Are you kidding? The rednecks are still stuck on the "Red Solo Cup" thing!
2000 Election 7-Election U.S. Voters
George W. Bush* 21%** 47.9%
Al Gore 20%** 48.4%
I am headed for my local 7-11 to buy me a blue cup of joe as we speak!
A cup of Biden?
Gross.
OBAMA 2012>>>>>>FORWARD
Those hillbillies you talk about are going to give O'Blamo a whole new address in January!
You believe in miracles?
Hmm, nice girl. Younger than the others. I'd vote for her. Plus she is not a spceial interest minority group just trying to get into power to change Canadas laws.
HERE'S A MORE IMPORTANT STATISTIC TO BE CONCERNED ABOUT...
Just two days ago, the Florida Board of Elections discovered that a firm backed by the GOP was involved in submitting hundreds of false voter registration forms throughout 10 Florida counties. The blatant and outrageous violation is now under investigation by the Florida authorities and it was reported that this firm and the individuals involved could face prosecution. So which party is the one that's truly involved in voter suppression and election fraud? If you guess the Jim Crow republican party you're correct. Furthermore, what is so outrageous about the gop's blatant violation of our constitution is how deliberate and shameless they are in their voter suppression campaign to sway the election. We often send election officials abroad to monitor elections in third world countries to ensure that elections are fair and democratic but it is appalling that here in the so-called greatest democracy on earth, voter suppression and election fraud by republicans is so widespread and deliberate that it has reached an unprecedented high that it has now surpassed all election fraud in world history. Remember the 2000 election? Only in America.
I guess we need some way to identify people so these phony registrations can't be used to cast a ballot.
In that vane see the article in the Harper's magazine of November 2012, titled "How too Rig an Election." In sum, more and more we are going to digital voting machines with no paper trail. Since the 1990"s there have been many upsets all by right wing Republicans that are highly suspicious including the 2000 Florida situation. The two companies that make the machines are owned by far right wing extremists and are interlocking, that is the key managers switch back and forth between the companies, several are felons and other undesirables owned by the Koch brothers and Karl Rove. These black box voting machines leave no paper trail that can be recounted and are easy to flip votes to get the "right" outcome. Since Chuck Hagel's unexpected upset of Ben Nelson in Nebraska in 1996 (by the way Hagel owned the company that made the voting machines before running for the Senate) by an extremely suspicious margin, there has been a statistical improbable of upset victories of right wing zealots around the country at all levels of government. The Harper's article is a must read for all who believe in democracy, who think elections should be fair and honest. The GOP is engaged in Jim Crow suppression of votes and massive, nation-wide election fraud. I don't much believe in conspiracy theories as I don't think most people are smart enough to actually do what s claimed. Howeever, I believe this one. We are one the edge of Facists hiding behide the veil of Christian and family values spreading the Big Lies taking over and ruining America forever, well at least for several generations. There is no hope in politics, you need to begin your spiritual search ASAP. There is an answer out there, you just need to be sincere about finding it and it will come to you.
Iiiiiiiiiiinteresting. Kinda like the 9/11 conspiracy theories.
HERE'S HOW ROMNEY IS GOING TO LOOSE THE THREE DEBATES AND THE ELECTION EASILY:
Unlike his deliberate flip-flopping and etch-a-sketching on the campaign trail, he noe has to say where he stands on abortion, where he stands on all issues concerning women,where he stands on Gay and Lesbian rights, where he stands on immigration reform, where he stands on the Dream Act, where he stands on Don't Ask, Don't Tell, where he stands on Medicaid and Medicare, where he stands on student loan interests, where he stands on equal pay for equal work, where he stands on increase the minimun wage, where he stands on going to war with Iran, where he stands on Mid East peace, where he stands on foreign issues as a whole...
Obama/Biden 2012 by a LANDSLIDE.
You need to go back to your trailer. It's "lose" not "loose", unless you are referring to a few loose screws in Obama's head, then we are in agreement.
In his entire argument all you can do is complain about a spelling error? You must be brilliant.
One must eat the elephant one bite at a time.
Hank,It's the national party that has to get the msagese somehow. We have to make them feel pain. In order to do that, they may have to lose a few seats.I support the Club for Growth, which attempts to beat RINO porkers in the primaries. That's one good strategy.And given the squishiness of the Republicans in Congress, the ones who gave us McCain-Feingold and the restrictions on military interrogations, the ones who interfere with the base-closing process for porky reasons, whoever wins in 2008 may not make much difference. After all, the craven Senate is not going to let a real conservative get on the Supreme Court, or stop the Democrats from filibustering judicial nominees.I really hate to say it, but it's true. There's no one on the horizon who approaches Bush's reliability on national security issues. After Congress has porked up the budget for another 3 years, and dumped bargeloads of money down the Louisiana black hole, there won't be enough pennies left to scrape together funding for a real national defense policy.If we make the bastards suffer this year and next, maybe by 2008 they'll have gotten the idea amd changed their ways. Or we may have a new crop of fiscally responsible freshmen in Congress.I'm not going to be blackmailed by the "It's either us, or Hillary" tactic. My reply: Go ahead, make my day.
7-eleven is obviously manipulating the cups.
Hey! That's my job!
Bada-boom!
I am well aware of the mathematical/probability/etc. intricacies of modern-day polling–although damn if I understand them. (I used to work for a major ad agency with a huge research department.
But one thing irks me:
How can Rasmussen's poll of 1,500 likely voters possibly compare in accuracy to 7-11's MILLIONS of polled customers via this method? (Albeit many repeat "voters" who buy coffee every day.)
I know the science is there to respect Rasmussen, Gallup, et al...but I still have a hard time believing it.
Since the country is so divided. Nearly 50/50, it can also be said that the amount of people who repeatedly get coffee at 7-11 (blue or red) is close to equally divided. I would also argue that it would be just as accurate or close since 7-11 has is polling more than 1500 people.
The short answer is that the people who buy coffee at 7-11 are not randomly selected. Also, someone who buys coffee there every morning is being counted multiple times, while someone who just happens to wander in once during this time period is not.
Even with those limitations, it's an interesting data point simply because it does include millions of participants spread all over the country. That may even out any inherent biases - or it may not. It's hard to say without more information about demographics and the number of repeat customers.
It's hard to wrap your head around some of the numbers, but if you take a few thousand randomly selected people from a state, the odds that they are *not* fairly representative of the population of that state is pretty low. But it's not zero. That's why they show a margin of error, which would typically represent something like a 95% confidence interval - that is, if they say the results are +/- 3%, that means there's a 95% chance that the result you'd get by polling everyone is within 3% of what they're reporting. The poll COULD be further off then that, but it's unlikely, and if you get a bunch of polls giving similar answers it's even less likely.
"And coming up on Fox News at 5, Republicans accusing 7 Eleven of coffee cup fraud in their '7 election' campaign..."
thats hysterical...you would think conservatives would support a completely NONE SCIENTIFIC poll, but even thats a conspiracy... I love you guys, you make liberals seem normal
Dont you think this is getting a little ridiculus.
Let's hope customers don't have to present an ID to purchase.
7-11 only sells Citgo Gas....>>Citgo Gas is owned by Hugo Chavez....hmmmmmm THINK ABOUT IT!
Nope. They used to, but the Citgo deal ended in 2006. Like most retailers, they buy whatever is cheapest.
Interesting theory–so you're saying Hugo Chavez deliberately manipulated the last three "cup counts" to make it closely match actual results, so that he could falsely manipulate this cup count to give Obama an artificial lead. Surely in account of some clever socialist plot. Nice work Columbo.
Obama 47% – Romney 1%.
For those of us who actually care what our coffee tastes like or can't stand either one of these loons running for office, we shall remain the uncounted. What a stupid promotion.
The 'stupid promotion' get them publicity every year, and got you (and me) to click on a story about them.
Romney lost, Obama won... 7 to 11.
And the Gary Johnson cup is where?
and for those of us that can't afford to buy coffee every day – we remain uncounted. But the Romney folks with unprecedented tax breaks can afford to purchase their Romney cups of coffee on the way to their salaried jobs to put in a token 20 minute appearance
Seems like the O voters have the most money to buy coffee. Wait, maybe they are so blind they are all unemployed and hang at the 7/11. Four years later with the real unemployment numbers approaching 20%, Moody's up for another downgrade, and 11 thousand in debt, per tax payer ADDED to the debt THIS YEAR SO FAR–they are still blaming W.
Who is Gary Johnson?
The 7-11's in the San Gabriel Valley, CA need to STOCK UP on the Obama cups! I actually had to pick a "non-partisan" cup the other day because all they had were "Romney" cups, and I am NOT "voting" for that rube even via 7-11! Maybe its a good indication that Obama will WIN IN A LANDSLIDE!
Good for you!!!! May the rest of country go the way San Gabriel Valley is going!
7-11 is alienating all their potential customers who think both candidates are bums.
That's why they have the nonpartisan cups. Boy, you have a low threshold of alienation.
Ill tell you who will win the election the one with the most electoral college votes. And that will remain a fact until the Electoral College System is abolished which will never happen.
It's hard to believe that people actually keep track of this stuff. Maybe they should track at what % can we actually get a good fresh pot of coffee to pour into the political cups. Actually I did my own poll with my two dogs. I took 2 bones – one red – one blue – put them in the yard and all 20 fetches both dogs went for the Blue bone. It might have been that the blue bone still had meat on it but it was a clear sign that the Democratic Party had a much higher percent rating.
Pretty interesting; I went to my local 7 Eleven in my town (SLC) and they were completely out of blue cups. I asked about it and the guy said "we can't keep the Obama cups in stock". I thought Utah would be completely red but maybe not but then again those Mormons can't drink coffee because it's a sin.
You do know Romney is a Mormon, perhaps counting coffee cups is not the most accurate method in this case. imo
7-Eleven has decaf, you know.....
Romney is getting destroyed in Utah...
It would seem accurate other than the fact that Albert Arnold Gore WON the popular vote back in 2000.
But he still lost the election. 7-11's prediction is still valid.
Yes, Gore won through ballot stuffing. The dark side of his character didn't become known to the public until he attempted to rape a masseuse. Now after the frustrated rape attempt he has hidden from the public.
Really? Is that why he was convicted and sent to prison? Oh, that's right, he wasn't. You are merely spreading an unproven allegation.
What's interesting is that the 7-eleven elections not only predicted the winner in every one of the past three elections, but the 7-elections correctly predicted the percentage of votes each candidate would receive within 1% in the last two elections. Eerily accurate. Let's see if it holds true for this election as well.
Wow. Your failure to understand prob. and stat. is astounding. The apparent similarity between election results and the beyond-informal polling conducted through coffee cup selection is coincidental. The poll results were 1% above those in favor of the Democrat in one election, and 1 % below in another, and less than 1% apart between the two candidates in the other. This is a difference smaller than the margin of error. Further, we elect ELECTORS in this country, NOT presidents. The system by which the president is selected cannot be simulated in this way via coffee cup selection. Furthermore, the employees at any given 7-11 store can skew the results in favor of whomever they want to have come out on top in various ways, including placement of cup dispensers, positioning of other objects around the cups, and failing to be able to differentiate between people who have 500 things on their minds when they grab a coffee cup, and simply don't care what color it is, or what word it has printed on it, only that when they leave the store, that it contains something resembling piping hot COFFEE. I propose 7-11 conduct a test to test the validity of this election thing, by having cups in two colors (and a third, uncolored cup) that are not associated with a political party, belief system, etc. and see if they don't get similar results.
I conducted my own study, BTW, in which I took a few dozen monkeys, blind-folded them, and let them throw their own solid waste products at photos of the two candidates in the last four US presidential elections, and you know? They were better at picking the winner each time than 7-11's system.
It might occur to you to wonder, how I determined the winner of the monkeys hit election prediction system, the one that got hit the greater number of times, or the one that received the lower number, and about that I'm prepared to be just as transparent and honest with the public as 7-11 is about its thinly veiled efforts at getting people to buy more coffee, by allowing them to imagine they're doing anything else when they buy a cup of 7-11 coffee than buying a 7-11 cup of coffee, and then publishing the "results" as a way to get free advertising courtesy CNN.com.
You see, I'd never heard of this, and I've had occasion to step into 7-11 stores many times over the last about 20 years, and I had no idea until less than an hour ago that they were doing this. You see, advertisement. Nice.
Eman, please take a french chill-pill... The guy was just noting that APPARENT accuracy, and 7-eleven noted themselves that this was not a scientific poll.. Relax, mon frere....
Hey Lee. French chill-pill? Some kind of an insult? I am French. Come to my house and you will have to eat the crepe off the floor.
Woah there, take a step back from the ledge. The guy was just commenting on the coincidence. He never claimed or implied that the 7-eleven poll was any better than your trained monkey poll. It is just a fun coincidence.
Anal retentive much?
Next time buy the decaf coffee.
Do you feel better now. Take your pills and have a nice day.
I bet you carry a toolbox for all the many times you have been called a tool. Tool.
same as throwing darts to pick stocks. monkeys often win at that too
Everyone should just chillax...just remember and tell your monkeys, even a broken watch is right TWICE a day!!
Interesting way of experimenting to predict elections. Unscientific as already mentioned but could be a way to reveal trends. Upon going to 7-11's external website looking at each city in states reveals an interesting trend. Some cities known to have higher socioeconomic populations show a trend of leaning towards Romney. The opposite of cities with known lower economic populations and middle class shows a leaning more for Obama. This is only a hypothesis and not conclusive. There are other elements that need to be measure such as coffee drinkers, populations that may utilize a different convenience store, and cups that should say "undecided". Overall interesting concept.
Interesting. But just on a glance, the non-participating states seem to lean the map blue.
I went to my state and they did not have many of the northern towns.
That sounds like the state of confusion.
Those are pretty eerie results.
Hey, let's not politicize a food blog here...
Too late.