2025 Special Election

In In August 2023, the ICMA Executive Board formed a Governance Task Force assigned with reviewing ICMA’s governance structure and regional representation. Its charge was to identify recommended changes to ICMA’s governance structure and processes to help ICMA be a more effective, diverse, inclusive, and global organization.

Over the next 22 months, the task force gathered input from various stakeholders to understand the current governance structure's strengths and challenges. The task force's recommendations were designed to address these concerns and update ICMA's governance processes. 

At their meeting in July 2025, the ICMA Executive Board approved the new regional realignment that effectively balances the five regions within the United States and continues international representation essential to ICMA's global focus and 100-year tradition as an international organization. The ICMA Constitution assigns the executive board the responsibility to "change the boundaries of the regions in order that all regions may contain approximately equal numbers of Corporate (voting) members." ICMA's regional directors and staff will work with state associations in early 2026 to develop new regional nominating agreements to implement the realignment, which will take effect with the 2026-2027 nominations and elections cycle. 

More information about the regional realignment can be found here. 

In addition to the changes to ICMA's regions, the ICMA Executive Board has proposed a number of additional changes to ICMA's membership terminology, governance structure, and process that require member approval to amend the Constitution. These proposed changes are presented for consideration by ICMA's Corporate membership on the 2025 Special Election Ballot, which is open from Tuesday, November, 4 through Wednesday, December 3, 2025.

The proposed changes include:

1. Changing ICMA's membership terminology to make it easier to understand. "Corporate" member would become "Voting" member and "Noncorporate" member would become "Non-voting" member.

2. Eliminating the "designated non-CAO" seat on the ICMA Executive Board in each U.S. region.

3. Revising the language of Article IV, Section I of the Constitution to require the Executive Board to examine regional composition at least once every 10 years. 

4. Clarifying how unexpired terms on the ICMA Executive Board are handled.

   1. Allowing a vice president who has served less than two years to later run for a full term.

   2. Allowing a vice president who has served more than two years to be eligible to serve as president-elect.

5. Removing references to number of regions and number of seats per region from the Constitution to provide the ICMA Executive Board flexibility to adapt the governance structure over time.

6. Cleaning up the language of the Constitution to provide clarity and reflect current practices.

Additional information about the proposed changes to the language of the Constitution associated with each proposal can be found here.

Members with questions about the proposed changes to the ICMA Constitution, can contact ICMA elections staff at  icmanominations@icma.org. 

How to Vote

The link and credentials to access the 2025 Special Election ballot were emailed to ICMA Corporate members eligible to vote. The email comes from a third-party online voting vendor, Association Voting, announcement@associationvoting.com. Be sure to check your spam folder. Questions or issues voting? Email icmanominations@icma.org. 

Who Can Vote?

Article VIII. Section I. of the ICMA Constitution states, "The privilege of voting is limited to Corporate Members." Corporate members are:

i. Full members (managers, deputies, and assistants working in local government, along with members who previously served in those roles, including Life Members).

ii. Affiliate members currently serving in an appointed position in local government who have a minimum of five years of service to a local government and five years of membership in ICMA.

Corporate members who have not provided an email address will receive a print ballot by mail the week of November 3.

Questions?

• For questions about your membership status and voting eligibility, contact membership@icma.org.
• For technical support on accessing the ballot, general questions about the nominations and election process, or ICMA Executive Board service, contact icmanominations@icma.org.