Most Australians would vote for Obama

Obama would win by landslide if world could vote
United States only country where McCain won
Obama leading in opinion polls since vote

IF Australians could vote for US president, Democrat Barack Obama would win by a landslide, according to a survey that was part of a global poll.

In fact if the whole world could vote, Obama would win by a landslide in all but one of the 17 countries polled by Reader's Digest magazine.

The odd one out was the United States where Republican John McCain was preferred by a narrow margin, the magazine said in an article posted on its website.

However, the surveys - with about 1000 participants in each country - were conducted from June 2 to July 7 and since then Senator Obama has been leading in opinion polls.

In Australia, 76 per cent of respondents said they would vote for Senator Obama, to Senator McCain's 10 per cent.

When asked if they were paying attention to the campaign, 85 per cent of Australians said they were, with 24 per cent of claiming a high level of interest.

But a resounding 71 per cent said they would not want to live in the United States.

Of the global picture, the magazine's polling director John Fredricks said: "It's Obama by a landslide - except in the country in which he's actually running for president".

"What is most striking is the margin of his support."

Senator Obama was preferred by more than 90 per cent in the Netherlands, by 85 per cent in Germany and by similar margins on all six continents, the magazine said.

Polling was conducted in Australia, Brazil, Britain, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Mexico, the Netherlands, Poland, Russia, Spain, South Africa, Taiwan, and the United States.

An interactive reader survey by The Economist delivered another resounding victory for Senator Obama.

The Economist has created a "Global Electoral College" in which readers in all of the world's 195 countries can cast votes on its website.

Mirroring the US system, each country is allocated a number of votes in proportion to its population.

In the US electoral college, a candidate needs to win 270 of a total 538 votes to win the White House. US voters cast ballots to decide who wins their state's electoral college votes, rather than voting for president directly.

"With over 6.5 billion people (worldwide) enfranchised, the result is a much larger electoral college of 9,875 votes," the Economist said of its global version.

"But rally your countrymen - a nation must have at least 10 individual votes in order to have its electoral college votes counted," it said.
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