Practical psephology is alive and well in Gambia

 Students of electoral science will know that R.B.McCallum coined the term "psephology" to describe his discipline and David Butler publicised it. It is based on the ancient Greek use of pebbles to cast votes. In the 1960s, Gambia revived the practice in order to combat fraud involving ballot papers, using glass marbles (or alleys, as we called them in my young days) deposited in drums bearing candidates' names and descriptions. Despite moves to replace the system with a more twenty-first century one, it was still in use yesterday to elect a new president for the nation.