By Willow Belden

AMMAN - Although polls show that Americans favour Obama by only a small margin, non-American bloggers - including those in Jordan -overwhelmingly support the democratic candidate, an online project that monitors what bloggers from around the world are saying about the US presidential election indicates.

“Americans vote. The world speaks,” is the slogan of Voices without Votes, a project commissioned by Reuters and run by a website called Global Voices, which tracks thousands of blogs from different regions and summarises what non-American bloggers are saying on a variety of topics related to the election - from Sarah Palin’s wardrobe to Barack Obama’s foreign policy.

“Whatever happens in the US has repercussions all over the world,” said Amira Al Hussaini, a former Bahraini journalist who runs Voices without Votes. “People are very passionate about the elections even though they cannot vote in them.”

She said bloggers around the world often stay up until three or four in the morning to watch the candidates’ debates and speeches in real time.

“Anything that happens in the US is going to directly affect the world and especially this region,” said Naseem Tarawnah, a prominent Jordanian blogger who has been cited several times on Voices without Votes. “So paying attention to what’s happening in the US is like paying attention to what’s happening in your own back yard.”

Various polls indicate that if the world were to vote, Obama would have a landslide victory. The Economist polled nearly 50,000 people from around the world for its “Global Electoral College” project and determined that if non-Americans could vote, Obama would win by 97 per cent.

A similar online survey called “If the World Could Vote” shows that out of more than 525,000 participants worldwide, about 87 per cent support Obama.

Despite the seeming Obama fever in the international blogosphere, Voices without Votes seeks out as many viewpoints as possible in their compilations.

“We’re trying not to be one-sided, and we’re trying not to focus all our attention on the pro-Obama blogs, even though they are the majority,” Hussaini said. “We try to give voices to everybody.”

Voices without Votes relies on fewer than 20 volunteers from around the world to monitor and aggregate blogs about the American election.

Mohammad Azraq, an IT engineer in Jordan, is one of these. He says bloggers in Jordan, like bloggers elsewhere, are predominantly pro-Obama. But he also said Jordanian bloggers tend to be sceptical that the outcome of the election will affect the Kingdom dramatically.

“Throughout history, Jordan has maintained good relationships with both Republican and Democratic administrations,” Azraq said. “Jordan will always be a close friend of the US; I don’t see that changing, regardless of who runs the White House next year.”

Tarawnah agreed.

“On a micro level, I don’t think it will really impact the average Jordanian. But I think on a macro level, it does make a difference what foreign policy vision is implemented in the long run.”

Hussaini, Azraq and Tarawnah agreed that in Jordan - and the Middle East in general - American foreign policy, especially regarding Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, is of particular interest to bloggers.

“Bloggers are saying that there will be a change in Iraq if Obama wins,” Azraq said, added that they aren’t convinced that Obama’s policies toward Israel and Palestine would be that different than McCain’s “because both campaigns have pledged strong support for Israel”.

While Voices without Votes tries to aggregate as many viewpoints as possible about the US elections, it is unclear whether the blogs they reference - and hence, the project in general - accurately represent global opinions.

“Bloggers are citizen journalists, so I would say that they are the true mirror of their societies,” Hussaini said. “We are trying to be as inclusive as possible, and we are catering to all voices, so the blog would be a true measure [of global opinions].”

Azraq doesn’t think this is necessarily the case, at least in Jordan, where less than 25 per cent of the population has Internet access.

“Bloggers’ viewpoints are certainly not representative… Bloggers are the elite of Jordan, especially those blogging in English,” he said.

So what is the project ultimately trying to accomplish?

“I hope [Voices without Votes] will be an archive which brings together under one roof as many reactions as possible… on the US elections,” Hussaini said, adding that 80 per cent of the site’s viewers are Americans.

“The people who go to the polls need to understand … that they are speaking for the rest of us,” she said.

Tarawnah also said he hopes to “reach out to [Americans] and allow them a clear view - a clear perspective of what Arab people are like”.

While Voices without Votes may seek to inform Americans about global opinions vis-à-vis the US presidential candidates, the project is not expected to affect the outcome of the election.

“We’re not doing it for that,” Hussaini said. “We’re doing it just to bring together as many voices under one roof and reflect on it.”

Voices without Votes is online at: www.voiceswithoutvotes.org