British Columbia could well be the deciding factor in today's election, and voters across Canada will have to stay up late to wait for results from the West Coast. Here are some ridings to watch.
Liberal candidate and former premier Ujjal Dosanjh held onto his seat by the skin of his teeth in the 2008 election, beating out Conservative rival Wai Young by just 20 votes after recounts.
The campaign has been marked by bitter accusations from both sides, after Dosanjh complained that Young had received a verbal endorsement at a B.C. Khalsa School meeting from one of the men acquitted in the Air India bombings. The Liberals also revealed that Young is being sued by five of her six siblings in a feud over their father's estate.
Young insists that she would not have attended the Khalsa School if she knew Ripudaman Singh Malik was there and has accused Dosanjh of working with her siblings in their lawsuit.
Meena Wong is the NDP candidate for Vancouver South, a riding where more than three quarters of voters belong to visible minorities.
Vancouver Kingsway
Don Davies won this seat for the NDP in a tight three-way race in 2008. He's returning to the hustings to face a familiar opponent in Liberal Wendy Yuan, who finished second in the last vote.
The Conservatives are fielding a new candidate this time around with Trang Nguyen.
The middle-class riding has an interesting history: David Emerson won the seat in 2004 and 2006 for the Liberals, but switched to the Conservatives after the 2006 vote when Stephen Harper offered him the job of international trade minister.
The NDP won this riding by just 798 votes in the last election, but incumbent Bill Siksay is not running, and has passed the torch on to Simon Fraser University political scientist Kennedy Stewart.
Stewart faces returning Conservative candidate Ronald Leung, a Chinese-language radio host.
The riding has been a shoo-in for the New Democrats since the late 1970s, and a loss here would be a major blow to the party.
Incumbent Conservative candidate Dona Cadman won her seat in the last election by a little more than 1,000 votes. The widow of maverick independent MP Chuck Cadman has held the riding for just one term, and newcomer NDP candidate Jasbir Sadhu could be a real contender to unseat her.
Sandhu has blasted Cadman for not showing up in the House of Commons to vote against the harmonized sales tax, while the Conservative has declined to speak to CTV News and has largely skipped all-candidates debates.
More than half of voters in the working-class riding are visible minorities, largely belonging to the South Asian community. The New Democrats held the Surrey North seat before Cadman's 2008 victory.
Newton-North Delta
Pollsters are predicting a three-way race for this riding, currently held by Liberal Sukh Dhaliwal. His opponents are Conservative Mani Fallon, a film industry professional, and Jinny Sims, the high-profile former president of the B.C. Teachers' Federation.
Crime and gang violence are concerns in the riding, particularly in the Newton area. The riding has a large South Asian population, accounting for about 43 per cent of voters.
New Westminster-Coquitlam
New Democrat incumbent Fin Donnelly is facing off against Tory Diana Dilworth for a second time in this riding, which has swung to the right in the past. Ken Beck Lee is returning to run for the Liberals.
Green Party leader Elizabeth May is hoping to make history with a win in this riding against incumbent Conservative Gary Lunn. May has switched coasts since the last election, when she came in second to Conservative Peter MacKay in Central Nova.
Lunn won the 2008 vote by 2,625 votes, but polls conducted by the Green Party suggest that May might have a shot at unseating the Tory.
Renee Hetherington is running for the Liberals and Edith Long-Kuhanga for the NDP in this middle-income riding that has switched hands from Reform to Alliance to Conservative over the last two decades.
Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca
Liberal Keith Martin won this riding by just 68 seats in the last election, but he's not returning for another kick at the can. His 2008 opponent Troy DeSouza is returning to run for the Conservatives against Langford councillor Lillian Szpak, the Liberal replacement. Esquimalt councillor Randall C. Garrison is running for the NDP.
The riding has been a Liberal stronghold under Martin since 1993, but the tight race three yeas ago suggests that just about anything could happen.
Vancouver Island North
New Democrat Ronna-Rae Leonard is running for redemption after her party lost its seat in the 2008 vote to Conservative John Duncan.
Duncan has a deep history on the right side of the political spectrum: he held this riding as a member of the Reform Party and the Alliance before the new Conservative Party was formed. Duncan lost the seat to the NDP in 2006, but then fought back to reclaim it two years later.
