A new political group calling itself Citizens for a New Seattle, which officially formed yesterday, spent a couple of thousand dollars in the past day on voter phone lists and 31,000 robo-calls in advance of tomorrow's all-mail-ballot election. Although the group's disclosure filing with the Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission doesn't say on whose behalf they spent that money, Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission director Wayne Barnett says they were for City Council Position 8 candidate Mike O'Brien, who's locked in a tight (and ugly) race against three-time candidate Robert Rosencrantz. Barnett says Friends of Seattle is paying for the calls.

According to Barnett, whose house the group called last night, the call starts out talking about how Rosencrantz is running a sleazy campaign, then urges the respondent to vote for O'Brien.

The group's treasurer, Scot Brannon, is a longtime member of the local chapter of the Sierra Club, and another representative, Jabe Blumenthal, a member of the board of Climate Solutions.

Although King County Elections spokeswoman Megan Coppersmith says that registering a political committee one day before the election is unusual, given that a large number of people have already cast their ballots, Barnett says there are no legal or ethical issues with the late registration as long as the group files disclosure reports within 24 hours of making calls.

So far, King County turnout, at 20 percent, is lower than anticipated. Total turnout after tomorrow (the deadline for mailing in ballots or dropping them off at King County Elections headquarters in Tukwila) was expected to be 56 percent—which means either that a lot of people still haven't voted, or that turnout is going to be lower than expected.