JEDDAH: The votes have been cast and counted and Hillary Clinton overwhelmingly chosen as favorite – with Donald Trump coming in a lowly third place in the poll.

That is, at least, according to the results of the online ‘Global Vote’, published Monday, which allowed people around the world to have their say on the US election.

None of the votes in the virtual poll will, of course, count towards this week’s divisive US election.

But the ballot at least gives some indication of how people around the world – at least those who went to www.globalvote.org to have their say – would vote.

Billed as the “first worldwide presidential election”, the poll attracted votes from 100,000 people across 130 countries worldwide.

Hillary Clinton received 52% of the vote, Green Party candidate Jill Stein secured 19%, Donald Trump 14%, and Libertarian Gary Johnson received 7%. Eight per cent of global voters abstained, indicating that in their view none of the four official candidates were “good news for the world”.

“What is clear from commentary around this vote is that Donald Trump is seen by many as a threat to international prosperity and stability. But this is despite a sizeable proportion of voters admiring him as the sort of straight talking, powerful and direct leader they would happily vote for if he was a candidate in their own country,” said Global Vote creator Simon Anholt.

“Meanwhile, although Hillary Clinton received nearly three times as many votes as Jill Stein, the degree of international unpopularity of the two main candidates is evident from the high number of votes that went to the relatively unknown third party candidates, as well as the 8% who chose to abstain.”

Global Vote participants were asked to consider only the international impact of each candidate’s presidency, since “domestic issues are the exclusive concern of US citizens”.

“I hope to remind people that becoming a Head of State or Head of Government of any country means joining the team that runs the planet,” Anholt said.