Gambia has an ingenious solution.
Gambia showcased on Monday its homegrown solution to the problem of fraud and illiteracy at the ballot box: voting with marbles.
At a press conference in the capital, Banjul, the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) displayed three metal drums representing the three presidential candidates contesting a December 1 election in this tiny west African state.
Voters enter a private area that is curtained off where they drop a marble into one of the three drums that are painted with the party colours and emblems, and a bell rings confirming a vote has been cast.
. . .
Electoral officials say the system all but eliminates spoilt ballots and allows illiterate Gambians to vote more easily, while ensuring only one vote is cast per person.
Sawdust or sand is sprinkled on the bottom of the barrel so that no second sound is heard.
There's more at the link.
I can't help but think that some US states would benefit from a similar system. Instead of hanging chads affecting votes, we could have holes in the barrel, from which marbles could drop out! In Chicago, of course, they'd magically roll from one barrel to another as well . . .
Peter
8 comments:
Can't work here too many politicians have lost their marbels a long time ago.... :-)
Shhh... Don't give them any ideas...
That was pretty much the system that Athenian juries used to vote.
I've seen a system where ballots have the party symbol or the faces of the candidates printed on them. Voters tip their fingers in indelible ink and swipe it across the picture they want to vote for. Seems to work for people who can't read, but will recognize a symbol or a face, and it marks people who've already voted.
You know, that's not bad at all.
Bill Gates would have appointed a committee, spent three million bucks, and ended up with something the Gambians would not want to use.
Africa has many things that appear "broken" to Western eyes, but work just fine for Africa.
- Charlie
I suggested this on a Breitbart discussion thread about six months ago, for what it's worth. I didn't know anybody else had used it. Another advantage of this system is that it can be counted practically instantaneously by simply weighing the canisters (if you use good marbles).
Sounds very much like the Athenian system of voting introduced by Pericles using white or black rocks.
I believe that even today clubs in Britain still use a box with one side containing white balls and the other black balls. Each member sticks his hand into the box through a hole, selects the ball of his choice, and keeping it hidden in his fist deposits it in a bag. The bag is emptied out on a table and the balls counted, white = yes, black = no, hence the term 'black-balled'
Al_in_Ottawa
The problem with this or a simple, hand counted, paper ballot is that US elections are too complicated. If we were casting a single vote for a party then it works. When a typical ballot has 40-50 issues hand counting, marbles, etc. are problematic.
Which doesn't say the US system shouldn't change, merely that any system must deal with the number of offices and issues being voted on.
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