General Secretary Election 2022

Stage 1: Regional Nomination Meetings

The first stage of the election process was a series of six Regional Nomination Meetings, ending in a vote of members in attendance in order to select the Region’s nominee. Three candidates were selected from these meetings to go through to the main ballot of members:

• Stephen Brown (nominated by the Midlands Region)
• Naomi Pohl (nominated by the London, East & South East England and Wales & South West England Regions)
• Morris Stemp (nominated by the North of England, Scotland & Northern Ireland Regions)

Stage 2: Election ballot

Stage 2 of the process was a postal ballot. The ballot took place between 14 February and 7 March 2022. Each member who was eligible to vote received a pack in the post containing a ballot paper which should have been completed and returned promptly using the provided pre-paid envelope in order to ensure the vote was counted.

The ballot was undertaken using the alternative vote system, a preferential voting system in which voters rank the candidates in order of preference rather than voting for a single candidate. The winner of the ballot would be the candidate who polled the most votes, provided they also secured more than 50% of the votes cast.

Ballots were initially distributed based on each elector's first preference. If a candidate were to secure more than half of votes cast, that candidate would win. Otherwise, the candidate with the fewest votes would be eliminated. Ballots assigned to the eliminated candidate would then be recounted and added to the totals of the remaining candidates based on who was ranked next on each ballot. This process would continue until one candidate won by obtaining more than half the votes.

Ballot result

From an electorate of 29,695 there were 3739 votes cast in total (12.65%).

In the first round the votes were as follows:

• Stephen Brown: 767
• Naomi Pohl: 1867
• Morris Stemp: 1105

The third placed candidate’s second preference votes (where applicable) were then allocated to the other two candidates and the second round result was as follows:

• Naomi Pohl: 2193
• Morris Stemp: 1426

As a result Naomi Pohl was elected as the winning candidate.

Scrutineer’s report

The EC appointed UK Engage, Image House, 10 Acorn Business Park, Heaton Lane, Stockport SK4 1AS to act as independent scrutineer for the election process. You can familiarise yourself with their official report on the process.

MU Rules

For reference, Rule VIII (paragraphs 1-5) governs the General Secretary’s election.