US Visa Lottery cancels results of 2012 lottery earlier announced

Written Oludare S. Fase, Washington, DC

Applicants for the 2012 US visa lottery who checked their results after May 1^st, 2011 and found out that they have been selected would need to cut short their celebration, while those who were not selected now have a second chance.

This is due to a public notice posted on the programs website canceling earlier results posted due to computer programming error.

The notice titled “IMPORTANT NOTICE REGARDING THE 2012 DIVERSITY LOTTERY PROGRAM” reads in full

“We regret to inform you that, due to a computer programming problem, the results of the 2012 Diversity Lottery that were previously posted on this website have been voided.  They were not valid and were posted in error.  The results were not valid because they did not represent a fair, random selection of entrants, as required by U.S. law.

If you checked this website during the first week in May and found a notice that you had been selected for further processing or a notice that you had not been selected, that notice has been rescinded and is no longer valid.

A new selection process will be conducted based on the original entries for the 2012 program.

If you submitted a qualified entry from October 5, 2010 to November 3, 2010, your entry remains with us.  It will be included in the new selection lottery.  Your confirmation number to check results on this website is still valid.

We expect the results of the new selection process to be available on this website on or about July 15, 2011.

We regret any inconvenience this might have caused.”