A bare-knuckled cyberscuffle, born from the Triangle's tightest November election, has begun yet another round.

Cary pundit Don Hyatt is throwing a political counterpunch at a slow-growth group that supported a Cary Town Council candidate he opposed.

Hyatt filed a formal complaint to the state Board of Elections against Davisandhighhouse.org, a political action committee that backed District A challenger Lori Bush.

In a Feb. 15 formal complaint to the state Board of Elections, Hyatt claims that Vickie Maxwell, who is the treasurer of Davisandhighhouse.org, and the group itself "engaged in a clear pattern of illegal actions that have misled voters in Wake and Chatham counties."

Bush lost to Councilwoman Jennifer Robinson, whom Hyatt supported, in a close November runoff.

"I'm not looking for big fines, and I don't want anyone to lose their job," Hyatt said in an interview. "I'm sure it won't amount to much more than a letter. ... But if they're going to complain about rough and tumble politics, they're going to have to do a bit better job in the future."

After the election, the Davisandhighhouse.org complained about dirty tricks and cyberbullying to state elections officials.

Somebody ripped off the design of its site and created a mimicking dot-com site - Davisandhighhouse.com.

The unidentified dot-com creator sent pre-election e-mails supporting Robinson. The dot-org group complained that the messages were misleading and appeared to have come from the dot-org.

Turns out Hyatt was the mystery man behind the dot-com scheme.

He admitted it in January and then stepped down from the board of the N.C. Center for Voter Education.

State elections officials ruled last month that he did not break any election laws.

But now Hyatt's back with his own beef.

'Fair is fair'

After Hyatt confessed to creating the dot-com site, Bush supporters lambasted him online. That's when he decided to file the complaint.

"When they insisted on dragging my name through the mud repeatedly in public," Hyatt said, "well, then I thought, fair is fair."

Hyatt, who is editor of a local politics forum called carypolitics.org, said he didn't want his complaint to appear petty.

"I'm just hoping that if they're going to move forward as a political action committee, that they'll be a little more careful in the future and think twice before they consider throwing stones," he said.

"This is not one or two things; it's a whole series of stuff."

Maxwell did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment.

Hyatt said he knew of the alleged violations during the election season but didn't want to make a public complaint then.

His complaint claims that the political action committee illegally collaborated with Bush's campaign last fall.

Hyatt says the group distributed flyers to hundreds of Cary homes stapled together with literature from the Bush campaign.

The complaint includes ten other alleged violations, mostly involving the reporting of monetary contributions to the committee.

Hyatt also alleges that the group repeatedly missed reporting deadlines.

Adam Ragan, a compliance specialist with the state elections board, confirmed receipt of the complaint Wednesday.

An investigation could start this week, he said.