NIC HARALAMBOUS

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Is the Independant Electoral Commission in cahoots with Microsoft?

The Independant Electoral Commission has a website. But alas I don't know what is on that website because I run Mozilla Firefox (or netscape according the site). The content is restricted to Internet Explorer (IE) users only. ONLY.I have been very intrigued by the entire political structure and internal strife of late. As have many others. I studied politics at university and therefore take great interest in the way things work here in SA.Between Selebi, Pikoli, Zuma, Mbeki, Manto and the Zille all making headlines in the last few weeks things could not be more interesting right now. With these sort of political headlines comes debate. Very heated and political debate. I decided that I should visit the Independant Electoral Commissions (IEC) website and see what they have to say about things. But I digress.Apparently what they have to say is not a whole lot unless you are a Microsoft supporter and you run IE.Now my major issue with this is that as a governmental organisation you should make absolutely all of your information available to absolutely everyone in your country. This should be law.In fact it is law in some places such as the United Kingdom, it is law.

1. Statement of commitment1.1. The BBC is committed to making its output as accessible as possible to all audiences (including those with visual, hearing, cognitive or motor impairments) to fulfil its public service mandate and to meet its statutory obligations defined by the Disability Discrimination Act.1.2. Unless it can be shown to be technically or practically impossible, all content MUST be made accessible.

This is a brilliant, practical, necessary and smart idea. I think that it is absolutely absurd that anyone in SA or around the world who uses FireFox, Opera, Netscape, Safari or anything other than IE cannot access information relating to the IEC.iec.jpg