Opinion: Barack Obama, John McCain and the ‘global vote’ for president

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

What would happen if the whole world could vote in next month’s U.S. presidential election?

The folks at the Economist have launched an international poll asking just that. And they’re taking this hypothetical seriously -- they’ve even redrawn the electoral map.

In the Britain-based magazine’s Global Electoral College, each country is given at least three electoral-college votes. Countries are allocated more votes in proportion to their population size. Under the system, for example, the United States has 432 votes. China has 1,900. Iran has 104.

So let’s get back to the big question: Who would win the global vote, John McCain or Barack Obama? Well, voting in the Global Electoral College doesn’t close until Nov. 1, but early returns show Obama with a massive lead.

The Democrat has 8,482 electoral-college votes. The Republican has just 16.

The only countries leaning toward McCain, according to the poll, are Macedonia and Georgia. McCain will probably lose this imaginary election, but at least his ‘We are all Georgians’ line worked.

-- Kate Linthicum

Speaking of voting, how are you going to decide without reading every Ticket item? You can get alerts for each item sent instantly to your cell for free by registering here at Twitter.

Graphic credit: The Economist