First it was Greatest Prime Minister. Then Greatest Prime Minister We Never Had. Then Best Premier. And with the summer here, it’s time yet again for my annual march-madness-history-political-poll-thingy.

Thanks for all the suggestions – I really liked the idea of “biggest scandal”, but felt it might descend into partisan poll stacking. I’m definitely going to run “Best election ad” one day but youtube is lacking when it comes to good old 80s Canadian political TV ads. This idea is so inspired, I only wish I’d thought of it. So the winner is…“Canada’s Biggest Election” .

I haven’t completely settled on a seeding system yet, but I’m inclined to have one side of the bracket filled with federal elections and one side filled with provincial/municipal ones, to try and highlight those a bit more. Any election of the past 10 years is exempt because my favourite University history proff always said you needed at least a decade before you could even begin to judge an event’s impact. And referendums are out, just because.

I’ll leave it up to everyone to decide what a “big” election means to them, but I’d suggest the following criteria:

1) Unpredictability: Either a surprise result or a close result are important, because this implies history could have easily gone a different way.

2) Impact: The result of the election must have significantly altered history – ideally for Canada as a whole, but also municipally or provincially.

Being a “memorable” election might also be a criterion for some, but I don’t think it’s essential since part of the purpose of this should be highlighting lesser-known elections.

With that in mind, I’m opening the floor up to nominations. I know the federal ones, but if there’s an election you feel is deserving of more respect than it gets, speak up. Most of all, I’m looking for some good provincial (and municipal!) elections to include in the contest. So comb the annals of your home province’s history and place a nomination in the comments section or over e-mail.