The Greater Manchester mayoral by-election will go to a second round, with Labour’s Bev Craig and Sian Astley of Reform UK still in the running to succeed Andy Burnham.
The two remaining candidates finished ahead of hopefuls from five other parties.
Geraldine Coggins (Green), Phil Eckersley (Conservative), Marcus Farmer (Independent), Richard Kilpatrick (Liberal Democrats) and Marlon West (Restore Britain) have been eliminated from the contest.
The by-election is using a voting system called the supplementary vote (SV), which sees voters mark their ballot papers with a first and second choice, and if any candidate wins more than 50% of the first-choice votes, they are declared the winner.
And as neither contender received more than 50 per cent of the vote on first preferences, the race to become the next Greater Manchester Mayor is heading to a second-round run-off.
The second stage will see the ballot papers of the eliminated candidates counted again, and if there are any second-choice votes for the two remaining candidates, these are added to their first-choice totals.
The candidate with the highest overall total of first and second-choice votes will then be declared as the winner.
Just 23 per cent of eligible people in Salford cast their vote in the election as turnout across the City region fell sharply from Burnham’s victory more than two years ago.
When he was re-elected for a third time in May 2024, the turnout across the 10 Greater Manchester Boroughs was 32.05 per cent.
But this time around, turnout in the Greater Manchester mayoral by-election was 25.14%, with 538,659 residents voting, Greater Manchester Elects said.
This was the lowest turnout in the four Greater Manchester mayoral contests held since the first election in 2017.
A campaign group for compulsory voting called the decline a “damning indictment of our broken democratic system.”
Charles White, of the Campaign for Compulsory Voting, said: “Greater Manchester’s abysmal turnout is a damning indictment of our broken democratic system.
“It’s clear media coverage, voting reform and stronger mayoral powers aren’t enough. Turnout just remains stubbornly low.
“The Government has a golden opportunity to introduce Australian-style compulsory voting. Further devolution must go hand in hand with driving up turnout or risk facing a democratic crisis.”
