NEWS RELEASE: APRIL 4, 2005

VOTING SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT GROUP ENDORSES
VELVET REVOLUTION'S "DIVESTITURE FOR DEMOCRACY"!

Non-Partisan 'Open Voting Consortium', first election
software developer to endorse campaign!

OVC President, Alan Dechert, calls for voting process to be
'clear, transparent, fair, trustworthy, orderly, observable, and auditable"

The Open Voting Consortium (OVC), a non-partisan group with Republican, Democratic, Green Party and Libertarian Party support, is the first Election Software Developer to publicly endorse Velvet Revolution's "Divestiture for Democracy" campaign!

In an open letter sent today to VR by OVC President, Alan Dechert, the group announces their intentions of adopting the standards set forth in our our February 21st letter to America's Voting Machine companies, calling on them to do the right thing for their country by -- amongst other things -- voluntarily opening hardware and software for inspection and certification to ensure transparency in our electoral system.

OVC joins a growing list of supporters to the VR "DV4D" Campaign which, along with over 100 Voting Rights and Electoral Reform groups, also currently includes 23 U.S. House members, and 2004 Presidential Candidates David Cobb (Green) and Ralph Nader (Independent). We are all calling for a trustworthy, auditable, transparent and verifiable voting system in the world's most important democracy!

Here is a copy of Mr. Dechert's letter of support (PDF version available here):

VR has been asking the citizenry to join us in the campaign by donating to VR (we are currently funded solely by citizen contributions!) and by sending an email to the companies stating their support for this campaign (we've set up a page to send email to all 9 companies in less than a minute!).

For more information on Velvet Revolution's "Divestiture for Democracy" campaign, please write to DV4D@VelvetRevolution.us or Media may contact publicist Ilene Proctor at (310) 271-5857.

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