Remember all that free stuff you could collect on Election Day if you told people you voted? Well, yeah, technically that's illegal because you can't bribe people into voting. So instead many of these promotions had to change their deal to, "If you show up on Election Day, you just have to ask for the item and we'll give it to you, whether you voted or not." And Starbucks had to pull a bunch of their ads at the last minute.

But no matter! The coffee giant still made out like a bandit for the cross-promotion with our democratic rights, in the form of free shoutouts on the news. The giveaway cost less than $1 million in free coffee, but you know what they say, good advertising is priceless.

Although, Starbucks might have been sneakily trying to save some money all across this great state of ours by discouraging their patriotic customers from receiving free cups of joe.

Some New York-area locations seemed to have tepid responses, and at least one location in Virginia was charging customers for coffee if they didn't ask for it for free.

The guy at my Starbucks personally snorted and rolled his eyes when I told the woman in front of me about the promotion, since there was nothing in the store that indicated the giveaway. Sure, maybe it was bad etiquette to screw Starbucks out of the $3 or however much a tall coffee costs nowadays, but it was obvious that this store, at least, would have been charging customers unless they specifically asked for the deal. Lame.