Students’ Union statistics from LeadMCR 2025 show society endorsements do not lead to actual votes.
The Mancunion has gone through the data and analysed statistics for all of the roles elected on February 27.
Student Executive elections run on a single transferable vote system. If a voter’s first preference is knocked out, their second preference candidate gets the leftover votes.
10,028 students cast votes, with the total individual votes reaching 50,599. This is an average of roughly five votes cast per person, which is an increase of 4.7 from last year.
Union Affairs got the overall most votes, with 7,137 votes cast. Lexie Baynes had the highest number of first-preference votes with 3,940, which was the highest proportion of first-preference votes at 55.2%. It marks a 2,399 vote increase for Lexie Baynes, who received 1,541 votes in 2024.
Candidates Adella Tobing and Charlie Roberts were leading in their categories from the start before losing out to the winning officer.
Faculty of Biology, Medicine, and Health was a tight race with Adella Tobing leading with 1,954 votes until the final round. Rhi Patel gained when Maliha Idow was knocked out before the fifth round. Patel went on to win by less 100 votes.
Activities and Culture incumbent Charlie Roberts started round one with 2,087 first-preference votes followed by the winner, Aaina Mohapatra, who had 2,030 votes. But that changed by round 3 and by the final round, Mohapatra won by just under 400 votes.
Only two incumbents, Lexie Baynes and Elliot Briffa, will be returning.
This year we also have data from The Mancunion’s society endorsement tracker.
UoM Book Club had the biggest member turnout out for LeadMCR 2025.
When voting closed on Thursday 27 February, Charlie Roberts was leading with 30 endorsements, yet winning candidate Aaina Mohapatra only had 10 endorsements.
Similarly, Adella Tobing gained 23 endorsements compared to Rhi Patel’s 18 endorsements.
Whilst Tobing gained the most first-preference votes, it was Patel who secured the role of Faculty of Biology, Medicine & Health.
Surprisingly, Sharon Mary Dominic Raj, the winner of Wellbeing & Liberation, had zero endorsements from societies.
Elliot Briffa had the second most endorsements, with 27, winning City & Community with 37.15% of the roles votes.
Alec Severs had 16 endorsements and was the winner of Faculty of Humanities.
New Postgraduate Research Officer Rachel Miller had 6 endorsements. Union Affairs incumbent Lexie Baynes had 25 endorsements compared to Emily Bennett’s 21.
Amrit Dhillon, for Faculty of Science & Engineering, had 8 endorsements whilst Dominic Counihan took 20 endorsements. However, these didn’t seem to translate into votes as Dhillon gained almost double, at 2,052, of first-preference votes compared to Counihan’s 1,053.
Jess Watson had 1,674 first-preference votes and 22 endorsements whilst Kai Prince gained 14 endorsements with 654 first-preference votes.
Your new team of Students’ Union Executive Officers will start the handover process during the summer holidays before beginning the role full-time for the 2025/26 academic year.
