There's a lot of people planning on "voting strategically" in this coming election. This is a nicer way of saying that they're going to vote for a party they hate (Liberals) because they believe that the Conservatives are too scary to be allowed to win.

In most cases though, this logic is just dumb. Sure, in a few ridings the Liberal/Conservative race is really close, but a great deal of ridings (most notably, ALL of the Toronto ones), the Conservatives don't have a chance. Voting Liberal in these ridings doesn't keep the Conservatives out, it just keeps the Liberals in. If you're a lefty and you want your views best represented in the House of Commons, I suggest you check out this site. It tallies projections for each riding across the country and will give you an accurate understanding of what the chances are of each party winning where you live.

Before you blindly vote "strategically", you owe it to yourself to get the facts right first.