Terms and Conditions

1. Acceptance of these terms

By voting, submitting a contestant application, or using an organiser or staff account, you agree to these Terms and Conditions and to our Privacy Policy. If you do not agree, please do not use the platform.

2. What the platform does

TechWorld Voting System is an online and USSD voting platform. It lets institutions, schools, churches, companies and other organisers run paid public voting for pageants, awards and similar competitions, and lets members of the public vote for contestants and nominees by mobile money or other supported payment methods.

We provide the technology. Each event is run by its organiser, who is responsible for the event itself.

3. Who may use the platform

• You may vote if you are able to make the payment lawfully with a mobile money wallet or payment method that you own or are authorised to use.
• An event organiser may set additional eligibility rules for its contestants (for example, membership of a school). Those rules are the organiser's responsibility.
• Staff, organiser, judge and agent accounts are created for named people and must not be shared.

4. Contestants and nominees

• Contestants appear on the platform either because the event organiser added them or because the organiser approved their application through our registration form. Submitting an application does not make you a contestant; only approval does.
• By applying, you confirm that the information and photograph you provide are accurate, that the photograph is of you, and that you have the right to share it.
• Your name, photograph, category and biography will be shown publicly if you are approved.
• Organisers may deactivate or disqualify a contestant under their event rules. Votes already paid for are not moved to another contestant.

5. Event organisers

Organisers are responsible for:

• providing accurate event, category and contestant information, and keeping it up to date;
• setting fair voting rules, prices and voting periods, and announcing them to voters;
• reviewing contestant applications fairly and handling contestants' personal information lawfully;
• deciding how and when results are shown, within the options the platform offers; and
• dealing with their contestants, sponsors and audience about the event itself.

Events are reviewed before they are published, but that review does not make TechWorld Voting System responsible for the event, its prizes or its rules.

6. How voting works

• You can vote on the website or by dialling *920*112#, when the event allows that channel.
• Voting is open only between the start and end times set for the event. Requests received outside that period are not counted.
• A vote counts only after its payment is confirmed by the payment provider and only under the voting rules set for that event (for example, bulk votes that need organiser approval are counted after approval).
• The number of votes you buy is shown before you pay. Please check the contestant, the number of votes and the amount before confirming.

7. Vote prices and payments

• Vote prices are set by each event organiser and shown before you pay. Your mobile money provider or bank may charge its own fees.
• Payments are processed by our payment partners (currently Paystack for website payments and NaloPay for USSD payments). We never see or store your mobile money PIN or card details.
• If a payment fails, is cancelled or is reversed, the related votes are not counted.
• Refunds are not automatic. If you believe you were charged in error (for example, charged twice for one vote), contact us with your transaction ID. We will investigate with the payment provider and the organiser; any refund depends on that investigation and on the provider's rules.

8. Confirming and verifying transactions

Every vote has a transaction ID (beginning with TWV-), shown on your receipt or USSD confirmation. You can check whether a payment and its votes went through on the Verify a Transaction page, using the number you paid with and the transaction ID. Our records of confirmed payments are what determine whether a vote was counted.

9. Fraudulent voting

The following are not allowed and may lead to votes being disqualified:

• paying with a wallet, card or account you are not authorised to use;
• using automated tools, scripts or bots to vote or to place payment requests;
• attempting to reverse or charge back a payment after the votes have been counted, without a genuine reason;
• offering inducements to influence how others vote, where the event rules forbid it.

We may review suspicious activity, hold affected votes for review, and share relevant information with the event organiser, the payment provider or the authorities where the law requires it.

10. Prohibited activities

• trying to access accounts, results or data you are not authorised to see, including another contestant's private results;
• interfering with the platform's security, testing it for weaknesses without our written permission, or overloading it;
• uploading content that is unlawful, offensive, misleading or that infringes someone else's rights;
• impersonating another person, contestant or organiser;
• sharing your staff account, private results link or access code with others.

11. Suspension and restriction

We may suspend or restrict an account, an event, a contestant listing or access to a feature if these terms are broken, if required by law, or to protect voters, contestants or the platform. Where reasonable, we will tell the person or organiser affected and give them a chance to respond.

12. Event cancellation or changes

Organisers may change event details, voting periods or contestants, and may pause or cancel an event. Where voting is paused or closed, payments that were already confirmed remain counted. Questions about a cancelled event, its prizes or its rules should first be directed to the organiser; we will assist where we can.

13. Publication of results

• Each organiser decides whether results are shown to the public, and may hide them at any time without stopping the voting.
• Some events show contestants only the results of their own category, or only their own votes, through a private results link.
• Displayed results reflect confirmed votes and, where an event uses judges, the scoring method set for that event. Final, certified results are the ones the organiser publishes as final.
• We do not guarantee any particular result, ranking or prize.

14. Limitation of liability

We work to keep the platform available and accurate, but we do not promise uninterrupted or error-free service. Mobile networks, USSD gateways and payment providers are run by third parties and may be delayed or unavailable.

To the extent permitted by Ghanaian law, TechWorld Voting System is not liable for indirect or consequential loss, for the conduct of organisers or contestants, for prizes or event arrangements, or for delays or failures caused by third-party networks and payment providers. Nothing in these terms limits any liability that cannot be limited by law.

15. Intellectual property

The platform's software, design and branding belong to TechWorld Voting System or its licensors. Organisers and contestants keep the rights to the names, logos, photographs and text they provide, and allow us to display them for the purpose of running their event.

16. Disputes

If you have a complaint, contact us first with your transaction ID or event name; most issues can be resolved quickly. Disputes about an event's rules, contestants or prizes are matters between you and the organiser. If a dispute with us cannot be settled amicably, it will be governed by the laws of the Republic of Ghana and handled by the courts of Ghana.

17. Changes to these terms

We may update these terms when the platform or the law changes. The date at the top shows when they last changed. Continuing to use the platform after a change means you accept the updated terms.

18. Contact

Questions about these terms can be sent using the contact details below.