Speaking of polls

BBC "World 'wants Kerry as president" citing a poll by Program on International Policy Attitudes, University of Maryland quoted the director of the program.

"Only one in five want to see Bush re-elected," said Steven Kull, the director of Maryland's Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA).

The Questionnaire and results are online.

Out of curiosity I entered all the figures from the tables into Xcel. In doing so, I noticed there were two responses not included by the BBC - "No Difference" and "Don't Know." Of the 36 countries surveyed, the story claims clear leads for Kerry in 30 countries. That's true compared to Bush but significant only if you ignore the fact that 11 of the 30 had higher percentages for combined "No difference" and "Don't know" than for Kerry. Example, Mexico: Bush 18 Kerry 38 ND/DN* 44

Spain is similar:
Bush 7
Kerry 45
ND/DN 49

Argentina
Bush 6
Kerry 43
ND/DN 50

Bolivia
Bush 16
Kerry 25
ND/DN 50

*ND/DN = No difference and Don't know combined.

Overall out of some 34,300 polled, 12,402 or 36% said it made no difference or they didn't know in preference to either candidate. And in countries where Kerry outpolled Bush, only 12 were over 50%. (Brazil, Canada, China, Dominican Republic, France, Germany, Indonesia, Italy, Kenya, Netherlands, Norway and Sweden.) Even in the U.K. there are a lot of unconvinced. Some 47% prefer Kerry, but 37% are DN/ND. (16% are for Bush.)

As for age, most of those polled were 18 year or older except in these countries, where the polled age was 15 years or older.
Czech Republic, Dominican Republic, France, Germany, India, Norway, Sweden, Thailand and Turkey.

Only one survey was conducted by Internet -- Netherlands.

So to quote me, 36% of the world they polled don't give a damn either way. And that's a heck of a lot more than the one in five for Kerry.