Vomit or Vote?

Election time again.
Federal this time.

I can't stand politics.

I force myself to become just informed enough to make a somewhat educated decision.  I personally feel voting is my right and responsibility and therefore have chosen to exercise my ability to do so.  Lately it feels like we are trudging to the polls every year.  We are essentially voting in our Prime Minister this go-round. It  has never been a particularly difficult decision for me.  

Until this year.

Our political system is somewhat skewed in that we do not vote specifically for who we believe would be the best person to lead our country.  Our country is divided into ridings and within those ridings are candidates representing each of the five or six political parties in existence (the number of parties varies per riding).  We vote for the candidate of our choice and the candidate with the most votes wins a seat in Parliament.  The leader of the party with the most Parliamentary seats becomes the Prime Minister.  The leader also has his/her own riding.  It is technically possible that a certain party could win with the leader loosing in his/her particular riding.  Although there are 6 or so parties usually only two or three have any sort of chance of significant representation in Parliament.

We can vote based on who we think would be the best Prime Minister, or with consideration of the platform of the party itself, or just because we like or know a specific candidate in our riding, or a combination of any or all of the above. It all depends how one perceives their vote.

Huh?

Yeah.  Do you sense my confusion?

My conundrum is this:

I know which party I feel has the best values and who I feel would make the best Prime Minister.  To a certain friend of mine that should make the decision easy and I should vote according to that and solely based on that.  But I cannot, in good conscience, vote for my local candidate of said party.  Our candidate was voted in as our riding representative for that particular party via some sketchy, back door methods that were legal but not morally right in my eyes.  In addition, this person has refused to attend any forums or debates, and has proven to be rude and unapproachable, and shown that he knows very little about politics.  There is much discussion surrounding this person and his utter lack of qualifications as the party candidate.  Should he win than he would be our area's representation in government; our voice.  That voice would be an embarrassment to our riding.  There was an argument presented to me that I should have perhaps joined the party in order to have a say in who the candidate was.  Maybe.  But I know for a fact in this case it would have made not one lick of difference.

 

Where does one go from here?
Do my best to overlook the candidate and vote for the party?
I really don't know if I can do that.  If we were meant to vote strictly for the party and its leader we would have a more American style political system.

Not voting isn't an option for me.

Spoil a ballot?

No, then I might as well not vote.

Vote for someone else?
Most probably option.

I refuse to vote for either of the other two major contenders.

That leaves another two (in our riding, with a total of five people running) basic no-names that might as well be a throw away vote because they have no hope in @#$% of winning a seat. Since I have already concluded that the person has to be reputable, I have also decided that I at least have to agree with the party platform.  I believe I have found such an option.

So least it will be a valid vote for someone and against the other moron and I'd have a right to complain.

This just isn't right.