With UK General Election (otherwise known as our chance to get a Prime Minister we actually voted for) just around the corner (May the 6th, if you've been making your home under a large boulder for the past few weeks) and the last live general election debate on TV tonight, it looks like everyone wants to get involved in the political madness.
Best of a bad bunch.
But if you had hopes of turning on your Xbox tonight to avoid the bickering and in-fighting, think again, as the political grudge match is making its way to the Xbox 360 dashboard.
If you have an Xbox 360 and internet access, on the dashboard under the spotlight channel you'll today find a new option for the Xbox LIVE Election 2010 poll. This poll gives you the chance to vote for Labour, Conservatives, Liberal Democrats, or the "Other" party (which we presume means smaller political parties such as BNP, UKIP, the Greens, the English Democrats, the SNP and Plaid Cymru).
Unfortunately, however, the Xbox LIVE poll isn't an officially approved voting process (even though it's probably more foolproof than postal votes), so you'll still have to leave your house to go and vote on May the 6th, even if it's raining - but it does give an interesting snapshot of the political stance of Xbox LIVE members.
At the time of writing, the "Other" party was currently in the lead with 35.2%, followed by Liberal Democrats with 27.3%, then Conservatives with 19.3%, with Labour coming in dead last with 18%. A total of 17,778 votes had been cast at the time of writing - which is an impressive number for a service that has only just gone live.
Xbox LIVE users in the US also had a similar kind of poll back in August 2008 specifically for young voters in partnership with electoral group Rock The Vote, which even gave Xbox users their very own dedicated forum thread on Xbox.com, to discuss topics related to the presidential elections.
The programs have both been designed to engage the younger voters in the political process, and also draw their attention to who's standing. It's just a shame there's nothing on there at the moment that details what each of the party's main policies are - meaning if you weren't sure who to vote for, you'll still be none the wiser.
So what are you waiting for? Get voting! Just make sure you don't disagree with any of the official Labour Xbox Live policies. You wouldn't want to be known as a bigot now, would you?
