By Drew Armstrong, CQ Staff

Scalpers beware — Democratic Convention organizers are keeping a tight hold on tickets to Sen. Barack Obama ’s acceptance speech at Invesco Field and are working with online auction site eBay.com to keep tickets in the chosen hands.

According to the Illinois Democrat’s campaign and eBay, the popular auction site is banning sales of tickets to the Aug. 28 acceptance speech. eBay is a common tool for reselling tickets to popular events, often well above face value — something Democratic organizers are trying to avoid.

“Because attendance at the national party conventions and convention-related events is not open to the general public and because eBay considers these events to be an important part of our nation’s political process, we will not allow listings for convention credentials or tickets to other convention-related events on our site,” said eBay spokeswoman Catherine England.

Democratic organizers have taken other steps to keep tickets in the hands of those who applied for them through their local campaign offices. Applicants for the Denver tickets had to provide background information and prove their intent to attend the speech in order to get tickets. The roughly 55,000 available tickets were snatched up almost immediately.

“We’re instituting a very strong, stringent tracking program for these credentials to make sure they intend to be there,” said Natalie Wyeth, spokeswoman for the Democratic National Campaign Committee. “Any credentials that are advertised for sale will be deactivated immediately,” she added.

Other ticket resale sites — such as Craigslist.org and Stubhub.com — on Tuesday had a few listings seeking tickets to the speech, but none offering tickets for sale.

Denver-bound Obama supporters from as far away as New Jersey were hunting for tickets on Craigslist — offering everything from cash to Broncos tickets. One claimed to be an Obama volunteer from Iowa, another a donor to the campaign.

Even supporters of vanquished foe Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton , D-N.Y., who are now backing Obama were in on the hunt.

Konrad Brown, 29, of Texas, said he tried to sign up online but didn’t move fast enough — despite filing mere minutes after the tickets became available.

“I have seen a couple scalpers on eBay,” said Brown. “I’m trying to catch one before they take them down.”

If that fails, he’s planning to drive to Denver and wait outside Invesco Field.

“With that being the hottest ticket in town, there will be people selling them,” Brown said, adding that he’d be willing to pay $100 to $200 per ticket. Still, he said, “I’d rather give that money to the Obama campaign.”

Stephanie Mueller, communications director for the Colorado Obama campaign, said the campaign had been working with Craigslist to keep tickets off the site. But Craigslist spokeswoman Susan MacTavish Best said that neither she nor their customer service director were aware of any such coordination.