16How and when will the metro mayors be elected?

The elections for directly-elected metro mayors will take place in May 2017, then in May 2020 and every four years after that. Candidates will either run as representatives of a party or independently and residents will vote for these individual candidates.

As in London, the supplementary vote system will be used to elect the metro mayors, unless there are only two candidates. The supplementary voting system, a shorter form of the alternative vote system, gives voters the opportunity to mark their first and second choice. If no candidate receives a majority, the top two candidates continue to a second round while the rest are eliminated, and the second-choice votes of everyone whose first choice was eliminated is counted.