IEC website – the final word

It seems that the more you look at this story, the more jaw dropping it becomes… This will be my last mention of the matter, as I am bored of an organisation that refuses to listen when complaints are raised.

Needless to say, as I write this, I still cannot access the IEC website using my Firefox browser. If you think I am frustrated after first blogging about this just 5 days ago, let’s look at some other sources of information…

It would appear that this issue was first brought to the public’s attention on Tectonic on the 28th August 2008.

On the 1st September 2008, Aslam Raffee, Chair, OSS and Open Standards Working Group, Daniel Mashao, Chief Technical Officer of SITA and Helen King of The Shuttleworth Foundation laid a formal complaint about this digital discrimination with the South African Human Rights Commission.

Mr Raffee however notes in his blog entry of 1st September, where the full text of the complaint letter can be found, that “After we were not able to get a satisfactory response from the IEC, we have gone ahead and laid a complaint with the Human Rights Commission.” In other words Mr Raffee had already tried a full process of correspondence with the IEC on this matter, and received no feedback.

You will hardly be surprised then to note Pamela Weaver’s comment at the bottom of his blog where she states, “I complained to the IEC about this more than a year ago and received no response.”

As mentioned before, there are a number of technical reasons for this type of programming and code in websites being unprofessional. However, the website also contravenes the South African government’s own approved “open source strategy” and published “Minimum Interoperability Standards for Information Systems” government which commits government and its agents to open standards.

If the IEC is willing to ignore all these people, organisations and even the government when it comes to accessibility of information on their website, then what hope do we have of it ever being answerable to anyone for the more important tasks it is meant to perform?

IEC website accessibility - follow up

It would appear that my posting of yesterday, IEC website only open to Internet Explorer users , has certainly caused a storm of interest.

While this was not the intention of the posting, it is nonetheless reassuring to see the effective of online media to draw attention to a particular matter and to involve the wider community.

There have been some interesting comments left, on this blog and other websites.
One of the most controversial was left anonymously, and alleges that the IEC is not as independent as first appears. While this remains just an anonymous comment, my friend and fellow blogger, Eishman, has picked up on this sentiment in his post, Corporatocracy alive and well in SA?

Having looked again today at the IEC website and found myself faced with the same error page, I wonder if my anonymous commentator has only JUST been assigned this "urgent" assignment to ensure that the website is compatible with all browser types?
if this is the case, then one has to wonder how long this has been the state of affairs? and indeed, with the popularity of browsers OTHER than Internet explorer - just how many people have tried to access the IEC website while it has been "under construction"?

A web designer, Mokokoma Mokhonoana has looked at this issue from a web design point of view on his blog, pointing out several errors that this type of error page is committing from a professional web design point of view. This makes you wonder what type of web budget there is in place - or what the money is being spent on?

Having decided, against my will, to refer to the IEC website using Internet Explorer, I found that in fact I was not missing out on too much. While I could download the Constitution and Electoral Acts, I couldn't immediately find answers to the questions I had.

The website is kept up to date though - with the latest posting being made on the 14th October 2008 - detailing the Municipal by-elections in Gauteng.
Does this really mean that the IEC have been updating this website - but for Internet Explorer users - and blissfully unaware of those of us with any other browsers? Seems the narrow mindedness knows no end...

IEC website only open to Internet Explorer users

With all the interesting things happening in South African poilitics just at the moment, I decided to check out the IEC (Independent Electoral Commission) website, to find out how our constitution might impact the date of the elections and when they can be called and how a new political party would have to register for the 2009 Elections.

To my absolute horror I was confronted by an error page, politely informing me that

"the current website is only compatible with Microsoft Internet Explorer V4 (and upward) on the Windows operating system."

EXCUSE ME?
Is it not my constitutional and democratic right to use whatever browser I should choose, and to access their website with this piece of software?

It is not that they are unaware of the browsers... They polite me inform me that

"Our server detected that you are using a browser or operating system (e.g. Netscape, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome etc.) which is currently incompatible with our website."

I certainly hope that this is rectified in the VERY near future!

They do however still allow me (even with my Firefox browser) to check if I am registered to vote.

I just may not have much information about the election I am registered to vote in!