Leadnow, the highest-profile organization raising money and recruiting volunteers to encourage “strategic voting” aimed at defeating Prime Minister Stephen Harper, has been accused of a pro-NDP bias and an apparent conflict of interest.

That charge came after Leadnow endorsed on Thursday the NDP’s Mira Oreck over Liberal Jody Wilson-Raybould in Vancouver Granville, even though most current polling data suggests they are either in a statistical tie or that the Liberal has a clear lead.

The executive-director of Leadnow is Lyndsay Poaps, a Vancouver resident who is the founder of Frontrunner, a candidate school for young women. Oreck is a volunteer with that organization and the two are friends, Poaps confirmed in an interview.

One Vancouver Granville resident, who voted NDP in the 2011 election and plans to vote strategically for the Liberals on Monday, said Leadnow may be confusing voters due to an NDP bias.

The organization’s canvassers, who went to her door in August when the NDP had a big lead in B.C., said she was told residents should vote strategically to oust Harper and that Oreck was the best choice, according to Bernadine Bolton.

Now that momentum has switched to Justin Trudeau’s Liberals, she’s wondering if the endorsement of Oreck could confuse voters and split the anti-Harper vote.

“It makes me very concerned,” said Bolton, who wrote to the Elections Canada returning officer Thursday to register her concerns about fairness and the Poaps-Oreck connection.

“I just want things to be fair. This is a very important election for us. I want people to be informed, and there’s a lot of confusion out there.”

Bolton’s letter of complaint said Leadnow is purporting to be an “independent and non-partisan” organization trying to defeat Harper, yet is releasing information “that appears skewed in favour of the NDP candidate (who) may have strong ties to Leadnow.”

Another riding resident and a Liberal campaign volunteer, Dale Hunter, said in an email to The Sun: “None of this passes the sniff test.”

But Jean-Pierre Kingsley, Canada’s former chief electoral officer, said there’s no apparent violation as long as Leadnow, a registered third party in this campaign, stays within rules which, for instance, don’t allow per-riding spending in excess of $8,788.22.

Poaps, who said canvassers did not endorse candidates prior to the organization making an endorsement, rejected the notion her organization is showing favouritism.

She said that, based on their own recent poll showing Oreck and Wilson-Raybould are in a statistical tie, they left it to the 5,400 people who signed up with Leadnow to participate in strategic voting.

Roughly 2,000 responded to the email survey, with the overwhelming majority saying they believe Leadnow should endorse a candidate.

Of those who cast a vote, 61 per cent favoured Oreck and 39 per cent Wilson-Raybould.

The survey included the Liberal and NDP positions that Poaps said are important to her organization. That list noted that Trudeau has “ruled out working with the NDP and Greens” on a coalition or formal agreement to govern, whereas the NDP’s Mulcair has said he’s open to that idea.

It also said the Liberals have said they will “study” different electoral reform options, whereas the NDP has vowed to “pass proportional representation electoral reform.”