The British weekly news magazine The Economist, one of the world’s most renowned news outlets, has set up a rather nifty site where people from all over the world can drop in and vote for their favourite candidate for the American presidential election this November. Go check it out; it has a lot of fun features — also, I need your help trying to figure out how John McCain has managed to get as many as three electoral college votes…

Of course, it does not include any independent candidates (which could have been interesting), and the fact that you have to register at The Economist’s website to register might skew the result somewhat — albeit probably not as much as having an open poll; having to make an effort to participate is bound to keep at least some people away from it. (And I’m guessing most of them would have voted for Obama.) The fact that it’s an online poll is also likely to skew the result in Obama’s favour, as he’s supposed to have more support among young people. Not that it matters, of course, seeing as this whole poll hardly matters at all, but still.