On February 21, 2005 (President's Day), Velvet Revolution sent a letter to each of the nine major American Voting Machine companies -- (Advanced Voting Solutions, Diebold, Danaher-Guardian, Election Systems & Software [ES&S], HartInterCivic, MicroVote, Sequoia Voting Systems, Triad GSI and UniLect Corp) -- asking them to do the right thing for our country!

In short, our letter gives the companies 60 days to take the following patriotic actions: (See the letter we sent them in full and our official statement for more details!)

• Voluntarily open their hardware and software for independent public inspection and analysis.
• Provide auditable, voter-verified paper ballots for all votes cast.
• Assure that there can be no form of networking on their machines.
• Allow for non-partisan, independent monitors of the vote tabulation process.
• Institute a corporate policy prohibiting the company and all of its executives from supporting candidates for public office or political action groups.
• Disclose all data, codes and records from the last three national elections, if requested.
• Adopt all feasible best practices suggested by a national committee of experts.
• Do all of the above at no extra cost to their governmental clients with which they work.

If the companies publicly commit to all of the above within the 60 days, we will broadly recognize them for their efforts.

If, however, they choose not to take these steps to ensure free, fair and transparent elections in America, then VR -- along, we hope, with all of you! -- will encourage all Americans to (1) divest from these companies and those with which they are affiliated, and (2) participate in a massive national boycott targeting them, their affiliates and their clients. We will also launch an extensive education campaign for the American public explaining the ways in which these companies are secretly doing the public's business of handling elections in the world's most important democracy!

VR has the support of more than 80 Affiliate organizations in this effort, representing millions of Americans, and more are joining up every day! Please join the revolution by sending an email to all nine companies stating your support of this campaign!

VR also asks for all donations you can make towards funding this effort! We're all in this democracy together, and without you, we're nothing!

And so begins the revolution...