IEC opens up website

Three weeks ahead of a final voter registration drive the IEC has made its website available to non-Microsoft users.

With just over three weeks to go to a final voter registration drive ahead of this year's elections, the South African Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) has made good on its promise to open up its website to all Internet users.

In November last year IEC chief information officer, Libisi Maphanga, said that the organisation planned to spend R3 million to fix the website which was inaccessible to computer users not using Microsoft Windows or Internet Explorer.

Maphanga said that the organisation, which oversees elections in the country, would spend R3 million to make its website accessible to all Internet users.

Today the IEC website is available to all users and the error message that previously infuriated users has been removed.

The website is now functioning and, despite occasional error messages, does allow citizens to check their registration status online. The site also contains a number of election guides to assist citizens.

Maphanga said previously that the IEC restricted access to the website to ensure that non-Microsoft users were not given the wrong information. This however frustrated many users, some of which filed a complaint with the human rights commission. Users argued that the South African government had an open source software policy and that denying citizens access to the website using their own choice of browser was a violation of human rights.

IEC website discussion