The vote is in and malaysiakini readers have spoken . With 7,876 votes in by noon on Friday, Oct 15, 60.5 percent of all of you voted in favour of John Kerry at the next US president. I submitted your vote for Kerry the same day.

I have honestly been taken aback by the enthusiastic response to the poll. More than twice as many voted than I expected.

The response has been overwhelmingly supportive, confirming the obvious: that the world outside Fortress America is hungry to have a say in matters of global leadership and its effect on us all.

When I'm in a generous mood and wearing my favourite rose-tinted shades, Malaysia does seem like a cultural/religious/political bridge in this highly polarised world.

It is arguably a progressive Muslim country (with an anaemic constitutional claim to secularism which looks increasingly divorced from reality - but let's not go there right now), a place where the McDonalds is next to a mosque and where Syariah Court judges can adjourn to Starbucks.

Malaysia, I think, is therefore the perfect place to open up the US presidential elections to the rest of the world. Given the enthusiasm Malaysians have shown in wanting a say through my single solitary vote, I would like to see more globally-minded expat Americans (there are seven million of us) offering their vote in the 2008 US presidential elections.

This could grow into an 'International Voting Bloc' where hundreds of US voters agree to donate their votes to a number of countries and will then vote on their behalf. While these votes would likely still be small in number, they would earn their importance by representing potentially billions of voices demanding to be heard.

I''m just thinking out loud here, but such an 'International Voting Bloc' could hold its own US presidential elections a full week before the actual one in 2008, thereby speaking in a clear voice to America what the rest of the world thinks. Now if only they cared ...

How do I feel about Kerry winning? I made it clear from the start that I would keep my voting preference private. After all, strictly speaking, I have no vote as I've given mine to Malaysia.

But gauging from a recently published Transatlantic Trends 2004 poll checking global public opinion on US foreign policy, the world is speaking with largely one voice when they call for George Bush's ouster.

He has been bad news for the world and that reality is trickling down to us all and hitting our wallets and security. I'm not surprised that Ralph Nader garnered as many votes as he did (11.73 percent) in the malaysiakini poll because I see a vote for Nader as a protest vote against both candidates rather than a vote for anything Nader stands for.

What does he stand for? No one knows because the press have given him zero airtime. Of course, what concerns me is that Americans will react similarly and use Nader as a protest vote.

That would, however, lead to the same result as voting for Bush in this largely two-way race. An irony if ever there was one. But we'll have to wait and see whether the US electorate suffers from irony deficiency.

I have personally gained a lot of satisfaction from leveraging my vote many thousand-fold. As you may know, like millions of Americans and Malaysians, I've never voted before.

Why vote now? Because apathy got me nowhere. I would like to thank all who participated in exercising their opportunity to vote, and to make a difference, no matter how small.

I would like to thank, in particular, malaysiakini for being the open-minded forum that it is.

Malayiakini 's US presidential poll drew the interest of the BBC , CNBC , AP as well as Time magazine though not one of the local media touched it, presumably because this political exercise was 'tainted' by malaysiakini' s involvement.