Terms of service

1. Acceptance of these terms

voteMe.live (“voteMe”, “we”, “us”) is an online platform for voting, ticketing, and awards nominations, operated from Accra, Ghana. These Terms form a binding agreement between you and voteMe. If you do not agree with any part of them, do not use the service.

We may update these Terms from time to time. When we do, we update the date at the top of this page and announce material changes on the platform. Continued use after the change means you accept the revised version.

2. Who can use the service

You may use voteMe if you are at least 18 years old, or the legal age of majority in your country, and are legally able to enter into a binding contract. If you are acting on behalf of an organisation, you confirm that you have authority to bind that organisation to these Terms.

We reserve the right to refuse service, suspend accounts, or remove content that violates these Terms or the Acceptable Use policy.

3. Your role

There are three distinct roles on voteMe and each has different obligations:

• Organizers create and operate events. You are responsible for the content, conduct, and legality of your event, including any prize, nomination, or voting rules you publish.
• Voters cast votes, register for elections, or submit nominations. You are responsible for the accuracy of the information you provide and the legitimacy of the payment methods you use.
• Ticket buyers and holders purchase and hold tickets to events. You are responsible for presenting the signed-QR or fallback short code at the gate and complying with the venue's terms of entry.

4. Accounts and security

To host an event you must create an organizer account using a valid email address and a strong password. You are responsible for keeping your credentials secret. If you suspect your account has been compromised, contact us at info@voteme.live immediately so we can investigate and rotate your session tokens.

Certain destructive actions — notably withdrawals and owner-level event changes — require a one-time password that we email to your registered address. You agree to treat these OTPs as confidential and not share them with anyone.

5. Fees and settlement

voteMe charges a percentage-based platform fee on money that moves through the system. Current rates:

• Paid voting: 10% of gross.
• Paid ticketing: 5% of gross.
• Paid nominations: 5% of gross.
• Free voting (election and hot modes): 0%.

Payment processing is handled by Paystack. Paystack's own processing fees are absorbed entirely by the platform — they are covered by our share and are never deducted from your payout. The percentage you see above is the total cost to you. You can verify this by comparing your voteMe transaction ledger against your Paystack settlement report; the amounts your subaccount receives will match the platform's stated rates exactly.

Settlement happens through a Paystack subaccount that we provision for each paid event using the payment destination you supply (mobile money or bank). Settlement cadence follows Paystack's own schedule — typically T+1 for bank accounts and same-day for mobile money in Ghana, though Paystack may adjust this at their discretion.

6. Withdrawals

You may withdraw your available balance to your registered payout destination at any time. Every withdrawal requires a one-time password sent to your email. Withdrawal requests enter a finance-admin approval queue and are processed within one business day under normal operating conditions. We reserve the right to hold a withdrawal if it is associated with suspected fraud, a disputed transaction, or a pending compliance review; when we do, we will explain the reason in writing.

7. Refunds and chargebacks

Refund policies for ticketed events are set by the organizer within limits we configure (refund window, percentage refundable). When you request a refund as a buyer, the organizer reviews and processes it through Paystack; the platform fee on refunded tickets is reversed against future settlements so neither party is charged on money that did not stay with the organizer.

Chargebacks initiated through your bank or card network will trigger a review on our side; repeated or fraudulent chargebacks may result in account suspension. See the full refund policy for details.

8. Your content

You retain ownership of content you upload — event descriptions, contestant photos, nomination data, flyers you design in Studio. You grant voteMe a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to host, display, and serve that content solely to operate the service you have signed up for.

You agree not to upload content that infringes third-party rights, promotes violence or hatred, violates privacy law, contains malware, or is otherwise unlawful. We may remove content that violates these Terms and, for serious or repeat violations, terminate the account responsible.

9. Ticket authenticity

Every ticket issued through voteMe is signed with an HMAC-SHA256 signature keyed by a rotatable secret. A ticket that does not pass signature verification is not a valid voteMe ticket. Screenshots, photographs, or transferred images of valid tickets remain attached to the original ticket's lifecycle — a ticket flips to “used” on its first successful gate scan and cannot be used again.

If you believe a ticket you purchased is not honouring correctly at the gate, contact the organizer directly or email us at info@voteme.live with your Paystack reference.

10. Privacy

We process personal data in accordance with our privacy policy. By using voteMe you agree to that policy. Organizers are data controllers for the personal data they collect from their voters, nominators, and ticket buyers through voteMe; voteMe is the processor.

11. Audit logs

voteMe is an audit-logged platform. Every significant action taken by an organizer, member, or administrator is recorded with the actor's identity, a timestamp, and the affected document. We never hard-delete records — data is soft-deleted and remains in the audit trail so disputes can be resolved against a single source of truth.

12. Availability

We work to keep voteMe available 24/7. We do not guarantee uninterrupted service. Planned maintenance will be announced in advance where possible. Unplanned outages will be surfaced on our status page and on the dashboard. We are not liable for losses that result from downtime beyond our reasonable control (force majeure, upstream provider outages, DNS issues, and similar).

13. Termination

You may close your account at any time by contacting us. We will deactivate your account and preserve your event data for the audit window required by applicable law, after which it becomes eligible for deletion under our retention policy.

We may suspend or terminate your account if you violate these Terms, the Acceptable Use policy, or applicable law. We will give you notice and an opportunity to cure where it is reasonable to do so; we will not give notice where the violation is serious, ongoing, or requires immediate action to protect other users.

14. Disclaimers

voteMe is provided “as is” and “as available.” To the maximum extent allowed by law, we disclaim all implied warranties, including merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement. We do not warrant that the service will be uninterrupted, error-free, or meet your specific requirements.

15. Limitation of liability

To the maximum extent allowed by law, voteMe's aggregate liability to you for any claim arising out of or related to these Terms or the service is limited to the greater of (a) the platform fees you paid to voteMe in the three months preceding the event giving rise to the claim, or (b) GHS 5,000. We are not liable for indirect, incidental, consequential, or punitive damages.

16. Indemnity

You agree to indemnify and hold voteMe harmless from any claim, damages, or expense (including reasonable legal fees) arising out of your event, your content, your violation of these Terms, or your violation of any third-party right.

17. Governing law

These Terms are governed by the laws of the Republic of Ghana. Any dispute arising out of or relating to these Terms or the service will be resolved in the courts of Accra, unless a mandatory consumer-protection law in your country of residence provides otherwise.

18. Contact

Questions about these Terms go to info@voteme.live. For privacy-specific requests, use our privacy policy contact path.

These Terms are a living document. We publish the current version at /legal/terms and keep prior versions in our audit archive.