Important updates regarding election eligibility for candidates, petitioners, and voters within Geographic Units. To align with the 2025 IEEE Bylaw I-105.6 update—which revised Graduate Student Member voting rights—at its June 2026 meeting, the MGA Board approved several changes to the MGA Operations Manual which affect eligibility requirements for geographic unit elections and are effective immediately.
Key updates include:
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- Elections for Councils, Sections, Chapters, Life Member Affinity Groups, or Consultant Network Affinity Groups: To participate as a voter, candidate or petitioner in these elections, one must be of Member, Senior Member or Fellow grade.
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- Elections for Young Professional Affinity Groups, or Women in Engineering Affinity Groups: To participate as a candidate or petitioner in these elections, one must be of Graduate Student Member, Member, Senior Member, or Fellow grade. To participate as a voter, one must be of Member, Senior Member or Fellow grade.
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- Elections for Student Branches, Student Branch Chapters, and Student Branch Affinity Groups: Student Members and Graduate Student Members have the right to vote and to serve as candidates or petitioners.
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- All voters must be active as of 31 March in the year of the election to participate in all elections.
For a comprehensive overview of the geographic unit election process, please refer to Section 9.13 of the MGA Operations Manual.
The vTools Nominations tool will be automatically verifying the new eligibility requirements as of 21 August. You can visit the tool here:
https://nominations.vtools.
You may also visit the Geographic Unit elections page for more information.
Thank you for your dedication and for helping us communicate this alignment to your geographic unit membership.
If you have any questions, please direct your inquiries to geounitelection@ieee.org.
