2021 Greater Manchester mayoral election

The mayor of Greater Manchester serves as the directly elected leader of the Greater Manchester Combined Authority. The mayor has power over investment directly to the combined authority from the government of £30 million a year for 30 years from 2017. The mayor also incorporates the Police and Crime Commissioner role of the Greater Manchester Police into the post. In addition to these, the mayor has authority over strategic housing planning, transport, adult educationand skills, social care and others.[3][4][5]

The first election for the role was held in 2017, Labour candidate Andy Burnham won with 63% of the vote in the first round.[6]

As a result of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic in the United Kingdom the government announced on the 13 March 2020 that it would postpone the mayoral election, along with all other scheduled local government elections across the UK, for one year.[7][8] The Coronavirus Act 2020 received royal assent 12 days later on the 25 March 2020 giving legal effect to the government's announcement. This was the first such postponement of elections since the foot-and-mouth outbreak caused a one-month delay of the 2001 local elections.[9]

The election will use a supplementary vote system, in which voters express a first and a second preference for candidates.[6]

• If a candidate receives more than 50% of the first preference vote, that candidate wins.
• If no candidate receives more than 50% of first preference votes, the top two candidates proceed to a second round and all other candidates are eliminated.
• The first preference votes for the remaining two candidates stand in the final count.
• Voters' ballots whose first and second preference candidates are eliminated are discarded.
• Voters whose first preference candidates have been eliminated and whose second preference candidate is one of the top two have their second preference votes added to that candidate's count.

This means that the winning candidate has the support of a majority of voters who expressed a preference among the top two.[10]

All registered electors (British, Irish, Commonwealth and European Union citizens) living in Greater Manchester aged 18 or over on 7 May 2020 will be entitled to vote in the mayoral election. Those who are temporarily away from Greater Manchester (for example, away working, on holiday, in student accommodation or in hospital) will also be entitled to vote in the mayoral election. The deadline to register to vote in the election will be announced nearer the election.

The incumbent mayor Andy Burnham pledged to take the bus services of Greater Manchester into public ownership, establish an integrated ticket system for all buses and Metrolink trams, make the city-region carbon neutral by 2038 and build 30,000 social homes over the next decade.[14] The BBC has noted that should the metro mayor take the buses back into public ownership it would be the first place outside of London to do so.[15]