Yesterday afternoon, pro-tunnel campaign Let's Move Forward filed a complaint with the Seattle Ethics and Election Commission, which investigates campaign misconduct, that claimed its opposition had broken the law! Dan Nolte, the Let's Move Forward campaign manager, argued that consulting firm Mercury Group provided help by designing an anti-tunnel literature piece that was never reported as an in-kind contribution.

"This should be disclosed," Nolte wrote in the complaint.

SCANDAL!

Well, not really. Mercury Group president Bill Broadhead says that his firm had "nothing, zero" to do with the piece. No designers. No input. Nada.

Meanwhile, Protect Seattle Now campaign manager Esther Handy is adamant that volunteer Seth Geiser designed it on his own. (This is the full Protect Seattle Now literature piece set to be inserted into copies of the Sunday Seattle Times.) "He started from scratch and did it on his laptop from home," she says. The volunteer, who isn't a professional designer and has no Mercury Group affiliation, looked at lots of past literature pieces, including a piece designed by the Mercury Group for Mike McGinn when he ran for mayor, Handy says. This is standard procedure, of course; a lot of campaign literature looks like other campaign literature.

Both multi-page pieces (photos of both after the jump) use black and white photos and similar—but not identical—block letters. Not exactly charting new ground. But Let's Move Forward spokesman Alex Fryer told the Seattle Times, "It looks identical to a piece Bill Broadhead (McGinn's campaign consultant) produced for the 2009 campaign."

How similar? See for yourself:

Included in the complaint was this photo of both literature pieces' covers side by side:

These are the back covers:

"Identical," Alex? Jesus Christ, you fucking liar.

"It's a campaign stunt trying to connect our campaign with McGinn," Handy posits. The pro-tunnel campaign has been running web ads for weeks linking Mayor Mike McGinn, whose approval number are in the low 30s, to "gridlock." And then? "The Seattle times took their bate and fell right into their trap," Handy says.

Indeed, the tunnel supporters found Lynn Thompson at the pro-tunnel Seattle Times, who ran the headline: "Is anti-tunnel brochure similar to McGinn-for-mayor brochure?"

Broadhead, who contributed to the anti-tunnel campaign, says there would be no reason to hide an expenditure—if it had happened, which he insists it didn't—because his previous donations were already reported. He says this is "just another thing that the campaign seems to be lying about."

I suppose it's possible that Let's Move Forward is right—that the other campaign actually got design work from Mercury Group, didn't report it, and is just covering its ass—except Fryer, who didn't respond to a request for comment, and Let's Move Forward have a terrible track record. The Let's Move Forward logo's largest component is a bus—but the tunnel doesn't fund transit. The campaign website says the project features "more frequent bus service"—but that's been debunked. And its previous ads have been consistently dishonest.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: the campaign has been busted repeatedly lying before. It's unclear if it's specifically campaign manager Dan Nolte, spokesman Alex Fryer, or consultant Christian Sinderman who are pushing this tactic—but this is clearly their approach: Lie all the way to election day.