Organizer Agreement

This Organizer Agreement (“Agreement”) is between Crown Votes (“we”, “us”) and the person or organization that creates an organization on Crown Votes to run a pageant (the “Organizer”). It applies together with the Terms of Use. Where the two conflict for anything about running a pageant, this Agreement prevails.

1. Your organization and team

• You must give accurate details for your organization and keep them up to date. The person who accepts this Agreement confirms they may bind the organization.
• You can invite team members with roles: viewer, coordinator, finance, admin and owner. Only finance, admin and owner roles can see revenue and request payouts. You are responsible for whom you invite and for what your team does on your account.

2. Running a pageant

• You decide the pageant’s contestants, voting dates, vote price, whether free votes are offered, and how public votes count towards the result.
• You must publish clear rules for your pageant and run it according to them. Crown Votes counts votes; it does not decide winners.
• You must not cast, buy or arrange votes to manipulate the result, or ask anyone else to, beyond ordinary public campaigning by contestants and their supporters.

3. Contestants and their consent

• You confirm that every contestant you publish has agreed to appear on Crown Votes with their name, photo, sash number and profile, and to the public showing of their vote count.
• For a contestant under 18, you must have the written consent of a parent or guardian.
• You must hold the rights to every photo and text you upload.
• If a contestant withdraws consent, you must remove or ask us to remove their profile promptly. We may remove content on a contestant’s or guardian’s request, or where we believe it breaks the law or this Agreement.

4. Vote pricing and payments

• You set a flat price per paid vote before voting opens. Voters pay that price by mobile money, through our payment partners.
• Vote revenue is collected by Crown Votes on your behalf and credited to your organization’s balance as each payment is confirmed.
• Our platform commission, and any payment charges that apply, are set out in your pageant’s commercial terms, agreed with you in writing before voting opens, and are deducted before revenue is credited to your balance.
• Every movement on your balance is recorded as an entry in a ledger you can see; a mistake is corrected by a new correcting entry, never by editing a past one.

5. Fraud checks and held votes

• Every vote is checked automatically for signs of fraud. A vote that fails a check is held: it does not count on the leaderboard, and its revenue is not available for payout, until it is reviewed.
• Held votes are reviewed. After review, a held vote is either released, after which it counts and its revenue becomes available, or its payment is refunded to the number that paid. This is a decision made on review, not an automatic step. A held vote is never both released and refunded.
• You agree to review held votes in good time, and in any case before the result is declared. We may review and decide held votes ourselves where fraud is clear or you do not act.

6. Refunds to voters

• Voter refunds follow our Refund Policy. Counted paid votes are final; refunds are made for double charges, payments whose votes never counted, held votes where the decision on review is to refund, and cancelled pageants.
• If you cancel a pageant after paid votes were bought, every affected voter is refunded, and the refunded amounts are deducted from your balance.
• A refund is recorded as a correcting entry on your balance. If a refund is due after the revenue was paid out to you, you agree to repay it, and we may deduct it from your later payouts.

7. Payouts

• You can request a payout of your available balance to a mobile money or bank account in your organization’s or your own verified name. Revenue from held votes is not available until those votes are released.
• Each payout request is processed once; a repeated request for the same payout does not pay twice.
• We may delay a payout while we investigate suspected fraud, a dispute or a legal requirement, and will tell you why where the law allows.
• You are responsible for your own taxes on the revenue you receive.

8. Your data responsibilities

You will see personal data about your team and about payments to your pageant, with voters’ mobile money numbers masked. You may use it only to run your pageant, must keep it secure, and must follow the Data Protection and Privacy Act, 2019 for any personal data you collect yourself, including contestant data. See our Privacy Policy.

9. Suspension and termination

You may close your organization at any time once no pageant is open for voting and your balance has been paid out or refunded. We may suspend an organization or a pageant that breaks this Agreement, puts voters’ money at risk, or is subject to a legal order. Sections 6 and 7 continue after termination until every refund and payout is settled.

10. Liability

Each party is responsible for its own obligations under this Agreement. We are not liable for how you run your pageant or declare its result, and you agree to cover claims against us arising from your pageant, your contestants’ content or your breach of this Agreement. Neither party is liable for indirect losses.

11. Changes, governing law and contact

We may update this Agreement with at least 14 days’ notice by email to your organization’s owners; a change does not apply to a pageant already open for voting unless the law requires it. This Agreement is governed by the laws of the Republic of Uganda. Contact: legal@crownvotes.com.