The Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) sometime ago intimated that henceforth, The Gambia will abandon the marble electoral system and embrace the paper ballot like in most countries.
It is sad that the paper ballot system is more secure and less prone to being rigged than the system which uses marbles. This is of course important considering the numerous accusations of election rigging in many African countries.
But it is clear that the paper ballot electoral system is a lot more complicated than the one that uses marbles. It therefore requires a lot of sensitisation of the people so that they would understand how it is used.
Up until now though, we have not heard of any initiative from the Independent Electoral Commission to educate the people on what this system entails. By now the work of educating the people should have started.
It will be unfortunate if it is left unplanned until elections approach only for IEC to announce that they are not ready. The IEC should therefore start this work immediately.
