After the predictable wild ride in the Douglas/Lougheed shoot-out, I thought this would be a good time to give an update on the Best Premier contest. First, the clash of prairie titans.

Lougheed and Douglas were locked in a tight battle, with Tommy holding a slight lead up until mid-afternoon today when legions of Peter Lougheed fans descended upon this site, sent here by Small Dead Animals. No doubt energized by this article on the Globe and Mail site where Lougheed slams Harper for not holding first ministers meetings and trashes Ed Stelmach and Ralph Klein for neglecting the Heritage Fund, Tories from coast to coast cast a moral vote in support of Lougheed’s criticism.

Then, around dinner time, the Douglas vote started to climb. Hitting refresh on my computer, I literally saw it jump by about 20 votes a second. While it is possible that NDP members saw the latest SES poll and concluded this might be their only chance at electoral victory in a long time and voted en masse, some snooping around has led me to conclude that this was computerized vote rigging. I was all set to DQ Douglas on this one, but a late surge has pushed Lougheed back in front and on to the next round, where he will meet yet another NDP Premier in Ed Schreyer.

Here’s how the other quarter-final battles have turned out so far:

Rene Levesque (16) over Angus MacDonald (1): 51% to 49%

WAC Bennett (14) over Alex Campbell (3): 55% to 45%

Oliver Mowat (12) over John Robarts (5): 59% to 41%

Ed Schreyer (7) over Dave Barrett (10): 74% to 26%

Louis Robichaud (4) over Joey Smallwood (13): 66% to 34%

Peter Lougheed (2) over Tommy Douglas (15): 54% to 46%

The final two quarter-finals matchups will be posted tomorrow, with the semis getting underway this weekend.