A second election between Magnús Karl and Silja Bára

A second election will be held between professors Magnús Karl Magnússon and Silja Bára R. Ómarsdóttir in the rectorial election at the University of Iceland. The election results were announced in the Main Building late this afternoon.

The candidates were Björn Þorsteinsson, professor; Ganna Pogrebna, professor; Ingibjörg Gunnarsdóttir, Pro-rector for science and professor; Kolbrún Þ. Pálsdóttir, Dean of the School of Education and associate professor; Magnús Karl Magnússon professor; Oluwafemi E Idowu professor, and Silja Bára R. Ómarsdóttir professor.

The polls were open from 9 am on Tuesday, 18 March, until Wednesday, 5 pm on 19 March 2025, and voting was conducted online.

Electoral register and voter turnout

14,557 individuals were on the electoral register: 1,752 members of staff and 12,805 students. A total of 1,551 staff members or 88% of the electoral register and 4,779 students or 37.3% of the electoral register voted. Altogether, 6,330 votes were cast. The overall voter turnout was thus 43.5%. The number of blank votes was 144 or 1.3 % of the total votes cast.

Voters on the electoral register, votes cast and turnout

Election results from the first rectorial election

The votes of University staff were worth 70% of the votes cast. Student votes were worth 30% of the votes cast. Taking into consideration the weighting of different groups of voters, the votes were divided amongst the candidates as detailed below:

Since no candidate received a majority of the votes cast, a second election will be held between Magnús Karl and Silja Bára as mentioned previously. The voting starts at 9 on Wednesday 26 March and ends on Thursday 27 March at 5 pm.