The unique way people from an African country cast their votes

By Joshua Corcuera

When we think of voting, we think of a ballot where we will shade circles to a candidate who we intend to choose to serve us for a number of years. In our country, it is six years for the president, vice president, and senators. Most countries in the world vote this way as well, and some developed countries even vote electronically. But there is one problem in exercising one’s right to suffrage, what if someone is illiterate? How can they cast their votes since they neither read nor write? This question led me to The Gambia, a small country of over two million people in West Africa, and their unique way of voting during elections.

The Gambia is home to over two million people in West Africa and is entirely surrounded by Senegal except for its western part which can access the Atlantic. Illiteracy, the inability to read and write, is a major issue in this country. According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), as of 2015, the said country’s literacy rate is a mere 50.8% for people at least 15 years of age. For Gambians at least 65 years of age, that number goes down further to 24.5%—this translates to roughly 1 out of 4 people. This resulted in serious problems in written communication, employment and economic growth, and voting.

After all, how can you vote for a certain candidate if you cannot read? This is why Gambians vote in a unique manner—they vote with marbles instead of the traditional pen and paper way of voting.

The latest presidential election in The Gambia was just last December 2021 where incumbent Adama Barrow was re-elected with an estimated 53% of the vote. Despite the emergence of mobile phones and computers and advanced technology around the world, this country in West Africa still votes using marbles. This voting system was introduced by the British in 1965 as a solution to the high illiteracy levels at the time. More than half a century later, the same system is still embraced. This system has been described by The Conversation in the following words:

 

In the place of ballot boxes, there is a metal cylinder with a hole in the top. The containers are arranged on a table inside a voting booth and painted with the party colours of candidates as well as their photos for ease of identification. Each voter drops a marble into the container representing the chosen candidate.

The final tool used in this unique form of voting is the counting box. Marbles are emptied into a square tray that is dotted with holes. At the end of the voting, counting is done on the spot.

The holes in the trays get evenly filled with marbles. The total is then tallied and recorded on the spot for representatives of candidates and voters.

Counting on the spot ensures fairness and builds public confidence in the electoral process.

Fortunately, we live in a country where illiteracy is not a big problem. Most, if not all, Filipinos can read and write which allows us to vote by pen and paper. Yet sometimes, on some corner of the globe, there are some societies that run against the flow, societies where unthinkable, innovative solutions to problems can emerge.