Contest & Voting Rules
v4Last updated 30 Jul 2026 · effective immediately
How voting works, for voters and organizers alike.
1. How a vote counts
A free vote counts immediately. A paid vote counts when Paystack confirms the payment, not when you press pay — usually within seconds, occasionally a minute at peak.
Settled and pending votes are never added together in the standings. A vote you paid for is never lost, only late.
2. Free vote allowances
Each organizer chooses whether their contest offers free votes, and how often: none, one per 24 hours, or one for the whole contest. The allowance is per account, per contest.
3. What is not allowed
Creating multiple accounts to vote more than your allowance; using stolen or unauthorised cards; automating votes; and organizers voting for their own contestants to inflate a result.
On a contest that shares vote revenue with contestants, a contestant buying votes for themselves — directly or through anyone acting for them — is also prohibited. A contestant who receives a share of each vote would be buying their own votes at a discount, which is vote inflation paid for out of the contest's own revenue.
Votes suspected of manipulation are held and excluded from the standings while a person reviews them, with the reason recorded. They are never deleted without an explanation.
4. What a contestant earns
An organizer may choose to pay contestants a fixed percentage of every paid vote cast for them. Where they have, the percentage is shown on the contest before you vote.
That money is earned by the contestant per vote and settles to their own bank account directly. It is not a prize, is not conditional on winning, and is never held by VoteSpree. Nothing is ever payable to a voter for having voted — buying a vote gives you influence over a public result and nothing else.
5. Prizes
Any prize shown on a contest — cash, merchandise, a service or anything else — is declared by the organizer and is theirs alone to fund and deliver. VoteSpree displays it as the organizer's own commitment. We do not hold it, appraise it, verify that it exists, or guarantee that it is delivered.
A prize is not payable to a voter, and never in consideration of voting. It is awarded on the published result to the contestants who placed.
If a prize is not delivered, that is a matter between the winner and the organizer. VoteSpree can delist an organizer who fails to deliver, and will act on reports, but it cannot pay a prize it never held.
6. Results
The contestant with the most counted votes when voting closes is the winner. Ties are broken by whichever contestant reached that total first.
Results stay published permanently. If an organizer deletes their account, the contest remains and is shown as run by a removed organizer.
7. Refunds
Votes are not refundable. The only exception is a contest that is cancelled or delisted, in which case every paid vote is refunded to the card it came from.