# Announcing the 2026 OpenTelemetry Governance Committee Election

LLMS index: [llms.txt](/llms.txt)

---

The OpenTelemetry project is excited to announce the 2026 OpenTelemetry
Governance Committee (GC) election. Nominations are due by 16 October 2026 23:59
AoE. The list of eligible candidates will be shared on 19 October 2026. Voting
will take place between 26 October 2026 12:00 UTC and 28 October 2026 end of day
AoE (29 October 2026 11:59 UTC), and the final election results will be
announced 30 October 2026.

## Vote!

If you are a
[member of standing](https://github.com/open-telemetry/community/blob/12e094130fc85f8990d5c0ccf1493004848baa0f/governance-charter.md?from_branch=main#members-of-standing)
in the OpenTelemetry community, we invite you to participate with your vote in
this election to ensure that the community is well-represented in the Governance
Committee. In this election four people must be elected, each with two-year
terms.

If you have made contributions to our ecosystem not measured by the automatic
process, you can
[request an exception](https://github.com/open-telemetry/community/blob/12e094130fc85f8990d5c0ccf1493004848baa0f/governance-charter.md?from_branch=main#elections)
before 23:59 AoE on 23 October 2026 to participate in the election. See the
[voter roll](https://github.com/open-telemetry/community/blob/03f8ce83a6443bdf74da15d5b2f24e52e337da5a/elections/2026/voters-roll.csv)
with all members of standing and approved exceptions. Approved exceptions will
be added to the roll continuously.

Voting will be open between 26 October 2026 12:00 UTC and 28 October 2026, end
of day, [Anywhere on Earth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anywhere_on_Earth) (29
October 2026 11:59 UTC) on
[Helios Voting](https://vote.heliosvoting.org/helios/elections/9bad2b3c-d2df-4634-b801-a6926fdd2251/view);
voters will need to sign in with their GitHub account.

For more information, see the
[OpenTelemetry 2026 Governance Committee election](https://github.com/open-telemetry/community/blob/65ca9aa67c4790e2c39984f9356b349c87861ab8/elections/2026/governance-committee-election.md?from_branch=main).

## Interested in joining the Governance Committee?

If you’ve been working on OpenTelemetry and seeing it grow or you're an end-user
who wants to help us make OpenTelemetry better, now’s the time to consider
running for a seat on the Governance Committee. You can read about the
Governance Committee's role in
[this blog](/blog/2019/opentelemetry-governance-committee-explained/) post or
refer to the
[charter document](https://github.com/open-telemetry/community/blob/12e094130fc85f8990d5c0ccf1493004848baa0f/governance-charter.md?from_branch=main).
You may nominate yourself (or others!) by submitting a Pull Request against the
[list of candidates](https://github.com/open-telemetry/community/blob/65ca9aa67c4790e2c39984f9356b349c87861ab8/elections/2026/governance-committee-candidates.md?from_branch=main)
by 16 October 2026 23:59 AoE — see the detailed requirements under
[nominations](https://github.com/open-telemetry/community/blob/65ca9aa67c4790e2c39984f9356b349c87861ab8/elections/2026/governance-committee-election.md?from_branch=main#nominations)
for the Governance Committee election.

We would like to thank the GC members whose term expires this year; they have
helped grow OpenTelemetry, and invite them to run for re-election if they so
choose: Alolita Sharma, Morgan McLean, Pablo Baeyens, and Trask Stalnaker.

## Questions?

For any election related questions, please file an issue on the
[community repository](https://github.com/open-telemetry/community/issues)
tagging the `@open-telemetry/otel-elections` team, email us at
[cncf-opentelemetry-governance@lists.cncf.io](mailto:cncf-opentelemetry-governance@lists.cncf.io),
or reach out to us on [CNCF Slack](https://slack.cncf.io/) in
[#opentelemetry](https://cloud-native.slack.com/archives/CJFCJHG4Q) if you have
an urgent access issue during voting.

See you at the polls!