Image courtesy of ballot.hackoregon.org
A great new site with an unfortunate name, “HackOregon” (message to 20 somethings, not all end users view “hacking” as a positive), provides assorted visualizations of campaign spending in Oregon, using information available from Orestar.
The most revealing thing to me is the fact that ALL the initiative and referendum campaigns rely on substantial donations from out of state donors and from very wealthy individuals. Nearly every campaign ad I’ve seen this year charges that “outsiders” and “billionaires” are influencing Oregon elections. Welcome to the post Citizens United / McCutcheon world of campaign finance!
The site could use some improvement in the search mechanism; right now you have to know what (phony) name is being used by many committees in order to search for their spending. For example, search on “Measure 89” or “Measure 90” and you only get one or another of the campaigns.
Very nice visualizations!
