Jump on The Tyee's Election Hook!

Tick. Did you notice? That was the needle moving just under 80 days until British Columbians go to the polls to cast their votes for who should form the next provincial government.

Today The Tyee unveils:

The Tyee's Election Hook: Our election-focused source for all B.C. political news, analysis, polling data and scuttlebutt as it happens.

The Tyee's BC Election Map and Guide: A riding-by-riding map and guide to the B.C. election. Click on any riding to find who's running, electoral history, key issues, related Tyee articles, and more.

The Tyee's crack political reporting team. We, in all modesty, consider it to be the best in B.C. More about them later.

Plugging you in

Regular visitors to The Tyee know The Hook is our news blog updated throughout the day. But election season is a special time for our readers. So we morphed The Hook into The Election Hook, where we'll cover breaking stories, tear apart the issues, identify spin, present polls and smart analysis, curate cartoons and videos, reveal party policies as they unfold, sum up the chatter in the square of social media, and more.

The Election Hook also solves a challenge for the time-starved: we'll boil down all of our in-depth election features into shorter, more digestible reads and post them there. Bottom line: Check The Election Hook and you won't miss a thing The Tyee finds and exposes.

If you prefer to get your news via the social media tubes, we'll tweet everything we post on Twitter @thetyee. And as usual we'll send out our daily newsletter every morning, capturing all of the previous day's headlines in one quick scannable list. There's also a weekly option. More and more those newsletters will fill up with election content (though of course, we'll still publish non-election Tyee stories too). Sign up here.

The BC Election Map and Guide is The Tyee's riding-by-riding source for election issues and action. Think of the map as a portal. Click on a riding (or look one up) to reveal a profile packed with candidate info, fast facts, related Tyee reporting for that riding, and more. Every day until election day, these profiles will be updated. Think of them as alive. New candidates announced? We'll add it. Something big breaks in the riding? It'll be there. Closer to the big day, we'll track the "hot ridings" as selected by our political team on the map and profiles. And of course, we'll add some surprises along the way.

The Election Hook and the BC Election Map and Guide are mobile friendly, too. Highly recommended for your morning and evening commute!

You made this possible.

Here in The Tyee's tenth year this is by far the most ambitious approach we've taken to covering any election. The credit goes to those who contributed to The Tyee's request for election reporting fund donations in summer 2011, and to Tyee Builders who pledge a monthly contribution to support expanded Tyee coverage. Thanks to all of you, we've been able to take our coverage to this higher level.

Which brings us to our ace reporters who will be delving into the issues and keeping the candidates honest. They include Tyee legislative bureau chief Andrew MacLeod, Tyee contributing editors Tom Sandborn, Tom Barrett and Crawford Kilian, and regular Tyee bylines including Katie Hyslop, Colleen Kimmett, Geoff Dembicki and David P. Ball. We've brought in a few ringers, too, including veteran political reporters Doug Ward and Tom Hawthorn. And we are guessing our columnists Rafe Mair, Andrew Nikiforuk, Shannon Rupp, Bill Tieleman and others might have an opinion or two to share along the way.

A shout-out here to the tech team who built our Tyee Election Map and Guide: Phillip Smith, Geoff D'Auria and Hugh Stimson.

So far, though, we've left off the key players. You. The Tyee's election reporting relies on tips, ideas and engagement from our smart and savvy readers. There are many ways you can help strengthen our coverage. Scan your riding page and suggest different angles or issues. Send us video and photos. Forward news tips. Tell us when you think we've blown it. And don't hesitate to post comments after stories.

All of this you can do by sending an email to our election editor.

We welcome your collaboration in producing the sharp, independent take on B.C. politics you've come to expect at The Tyee. Tick. Seventy-nine days to go!