Let’s Make Sure We Keep it Clean in Oregon, Shall We?

Matt Lewis of Town Hall has caught wind of some questionable activity out in Oregon, where the tight, contested Senate race between Jeff Merkley and Gordon Smith is going to a recount this week.

I’m hearing that there are some strange goings on in Portland, Oregon today. Apparently, the press are being asked to leave the building where the ballots from yesterday’s election are stored. The Democratic officials in charge of the building are saying there has been a flood.

In terms of sourcing, this isn’t much to go on yet, so we’re not going to get all agitated at this point. But we will be keeping an eye on the local press out there to see where the story goes. If true, there are some disturbing elements here. Even if there was no hanky-panky going on, the very idea of chasing the press away from the location where the ballots are being handled is exactly the opposite of transparency. (Which, if I recall properly, was the main complaint from the Democrats after 2000 and a focus of the HAVA.) If I were in charge of the Oregon Democratic Party, I’d be asking for reporters to be stationed around every machine and every collection of ballots until we have a winner. Even the appearance of impropriety is exactly the opposite of what you want on the eve of ascending to power.

Jazz, now that the Democrats are coming into power, are you just going to start lobbing fireballs at them?

Ummm, I don’t know. Yes? I mean, I’ve got all of these perfectly good torches and pitchforks left over. Who should I be chasing through the town square? The team who probably won’t be able to get a single piece of legislation out of committee until 2011 at the soonest?

UPDATE: As per Ron in the comments and a couple of e-mails, additional digging indicates that at least one reporter may have been allowed in the building and the local media isn’t picking up on it at this point, so Matt Lewis’ source may have been off base on this one. Still checking…