Mayor of the West of England
The Mayor of the West of England is the directly elected mayor responsible for the strategic government of the West of England, including planning, transport and skills. For this purpose the West of England is defined as the local authority areas of Bristol, South Gloucestershire, and Bath and North East Somerset. The creation of the role was agreed in 2016 by the then Chancellor George Osborne and the leaders of the three councils.
Elections use the supplementary vote system, where electors can vote for "first preference" and "second preference" candidates. If no candidate receives a majority of first-choice votes, all but the two leading candidates are eliminated and the votes of those eliminated are redistributed according to their second-choice votes to determine the winner.
The first election took place on 4 May 2017, and was won by Tim Bowles with a total of 70,300 votes, including second preferences. The turnout was 29.7%, with 199,519 voting out of the possible 671,280.
