Announcing the 2026 PSF Board Election Results!

The 2026 election for the PSF Board created an opportunity for conversations about the PSF's work to serve the global Python community. We appreciate community members' perspectives, passion, and engagement in the election process this year. 

We want to send a big thanks to everyone who ran and was willing to serve on the PSF Board. Even if you were not elected, we appreciate all the time and effort you put into thinking about how to improve the PSF and represent the parts of the community you participate in. We hope that you will continue to think about these issues, share your ideas, and join a PSF Work Group or PSF initiative if you feel called to do so.

Board Members Elect 

Congratulations to our three new and one returning Board members who have been elected! 

• Elaine Wong
• Laís Carvalho
• Ee Durbin
• Georgi Ker

We’ll be in touch with all the elected candidates shortly to schedule onboarding. Newly elected PSF Board members are provided orientation for their service and will be joining the upcoming board meeting in October. 

Thank you!

We’d like to take this opportunity to thank our outgoing board members. Cheuk Ting Ho has been a super engaged PSF Board member, participating in many committees, and helping out on many PSF Programs and projects during her time on the PSF Board. Chris Neugebauer has been a longtime board member and in particular has been the watch guard of our bylaws conversations and has always been ready to share institutional knowledge. Denny Perez has been instrumental on the PSF Board, serving on the Executive Committee, as Treasurer, and on various committees during her tenure. All three of you helped shape the PSF’s Strategic Plan for the next 5 years, which was a massive undertaking. Thank you, Cheuk, Chris, and Denny for your leadership and dedication to the PSF and the Python community. You will be missed and are deeply appreciated!

Our heartfelt thanks go out to each of you who took the time to review the candidates and submit your votes. Your participation helps the PSF represent our community. We received 670 total ballots, easily reaching quorum–1/3 of affirmed voting members (1123). We’re especially grateful for your patience with continuing to navigate the additions to the elections processes with the inaugural Python Packaging Council election.

We also want to thank everyone who helped promote this year’s board election, especially Board Member KwonHan Bae, who took the initiative to cover this year’s election and worked with PSF Staff to conduct written interviews with candidates. This promotional effort was inspired by the work of Python Community News in 2023. We also want to highlight the PSF staff members and PSF Board members who put in tons of effort each year as we work to continually improve the PSF elections.

What’s next?

If you’re interested in the complete tally, make sure to check the Python Software Foundation Board of Directors Election 2026 Results page. These results will be available until November 10, 2026.

The PSF Election team will conduct a retrospective of this year’s election process to ensure we are improving year over year. We received valuable feedback about the process and tooling. We hope to be able to implement more changes for next year to ensure a smooth and accessible election process for everyone in our community. If you have feedback or comments about this year’s PSF Board election, we welcome you to join the discussion on discuss.python.org or email psf-elections@pyfound.org. 

Finally, it might feel a little early to mention this, but we will have at least 3 seats open again next year. If you're interested in running or learning more, we encourage you to contact a current PSF Board member or two this year and ask them about their experience serving on the board.

Announcing the 2026 Python Packaging Council Election Results!

The inaugural Python Packaging Council (PPC) election has concluded. With 17 candidates and plenty of lively AMA discussions on DPO, we are pleased to see the level of engagement with this first PPC election.

We want to send a big thanks to everyone who ran and was willing to serve on the council. Even if you were not elected, we appreciate all the time and effort you put into thinking about how to improve Python’s packaging ecosystem and represent the parts of the community you participate in.

Council Members Elect 

Congratulations to our five inaugural Python Packaging Council members who have been elected! 

• Brett Cannon – for a 2 year term (Cohort A)
• Pradyun Gedam – for a 2 year term (Cohort A)
• Donald Stufft – for a 1 year term (Cohort B)
• Henry Schreiner – for a 1 year term (Cohort B)
• Ralf Gommers – for a 1 year term (Cohort B)

Our heartfelt thanks go out to each of you who took the time to review the candidates and submit your votes. We received 541 total ballots.

We also want to thank everyone who participated in the PEP 772 discussions to establish this council as well as those who helped with this year’s election–especially Barry Warsaw and Pradyun Gedam as community liaisons for this inaugural election. We also want to highlight the PSF staff members and PSF Board members who put in tons of effort each year as we work to continually improve our elections.

How do the terms/cohorts work?

This inaugural election fills all five seats on the PPC. The two candidates receiving the highest number of votes are designated Cohort A with a two year term, and the three candidates receiving the next highest number of votes are designated Cohort B with a one year term.

In future elections, each cohort will be elected for a full two-year term in alternating years, so that roughly half of the PPC turns over each cycle.

What’s next?

We are already in touch with all the elected candidates to schedule onboarding.
If you’re interested in the complete tally, make sure to check the Python Packaging Council Election 2026 Results page. These results will be available until November 10, 2026.

Announcing the PSF Strategic Plan 2026

In May, the Python Software Foundation (PSF) shared the high-level goals of our Strategic Plan. In June, we published the full draft and opened it for community feedback. Today we are sharing the outcome: at its July 8 meeting, the PSF Board adopted the PSF Strategic Plan 2026, covering 2026 to 2031.

Our new PSF Strategy page is the permanent home for the plan, with information about how the board sets priorities and how you can share feedback. We’ll publish annual review findings and future updates there so the community can follow our progress and any changes to the plan.

What the feedback changed

Feedback from PSF Staff and the Python community shaped real changes to the draft we published in June.

Staff feedback added a Security Baseline objective for all PSF projects and services and a Vulnerability Management objective in response to the rapid growth in security reports, and it sharpened wording across the organizational goals. Community feedback shaped the plan, too: translation and localization are now part of the accessibility work, companies that want to fund specific work get clearer pathways, and the ideas under financial sustainability now include growing the value of PSF membership.

The plan's "How This Plan Was Shaped" section documents the process, and we are grateful to everyone who took the time to share their perspectives.

The annual review

A five-year plan is only useful if it stays current. Alongside adoption, the board established an annual review of the strategic plan. Each year, the board will:

• Assess progress against the goals

• Evaluate whether priorities need to shift

• Incorporate feedback from PSF staff and the community

• Publish a summary of findings and any changes made

The plan is designed as a living document, and we will be sharing details on the first review cycle.

What happens next

Implementation of the Strategic Plan is the job of PSF staff, and it has already started. The 2026 Grants Program Funding Round announced in July is the first concrete step under the plan's grants reform direction, and awards will be announced later this month.

We also know the community is waiting for updated financial information. The PSF has engaged an external accounting firm to support this work, and we will share an update as soon as the numbers are ready for publication.

The plan now informs how the PSF allocates its budget and staff time, and there are several ways to stay involved. We welcome community feedback at strategy@python.org year-round, and the monthly PSF Board Office Hours on the PSF Discord are a good place to connect with the board and to ask questions about the plan. Input arriving now feeds the first annual review.

Thank you to everyone who read the draft, contributed feedback, joined the office hours, and talked with us at PyCon US. The PSF’s Strategic Plan is better for it.

Jannis Leidel, PSF Board Chair, on behalf of the PSF Board of Directors

The 2026 PSF Board Election is Open!

It’s time to cast your vote! Voting for the 2026 PSF Board Election is open starting today Tuesday, September 1st, 2:00 pm UTC, through Tuesday, September 15th, 2:00 pm UTC. 

How to Vote

If you are a voting member of the PSF who affirmed your intention to participate in this year’s election or you voted in last year’s election, you will receive an email today from “OpaVote Voting Link <noreply@opavote.com>” with a link to your ballot. The subject line will read “Python Software Foundation Board of Directors Election 2026”. If you haven’t seen your ballot by Wednesday, please first check your spam folder for a message from “noreply@opavote.com”. If you can’t find the ballot email from OpaVote please get in touch by emailing psf-elections@pyfound.org so we can look into your account and make sure we have the most up-to-date email for you.

Four seats on the board are open, but you can vote to approve as many of the 17 candidates as you like. We’re delighted by how many of you are willing to contribute to the Python community by serving on the PSF Board! Make sure you take some time to look at all the nominee statements and choose your candidates carefully. 

ATTN: Choose carefully before you press the big green vote button. Once your vote is cast, it cannot be changed.

An Informed Vote is a Great Vote

Nomination and supporting statements are the clearest way to see how each candidate actually thinks: their priorities, experience, and vision for the PSF. Rather than just voting on name recognition, we encourage you to read each candidate's nomination and supporting statements. PSF Board members shape real decisions about budget, programs, and community direction. Reading these statements helps ensure your vote reflects what the candidates would actually do in the role. 

This year, the PSF election team has taken a few more steps to ensure informed voting. We invited this year’s candidates to participate in written interviews. You can find the candidate interviews on the PSF blog. We also encouraged this year’s candidates to open AMA (ask me anything) threads on discuss.python.org. You can find those threads under the PSF Board Election category on Discuss. Some great Q&A has already been taking place, so make sure to check them out!

Who can vote? 

You need to be a Contributing, Supporting, or Fellow member and have affirmed your voting intention by August 25th, 2:00 pm UTC, to vote in this election. Per last year’s Bylaw change that allows for simplifying the voter affirmation process by treating past voting activity as intent to continue voting, if you voted last year, you have been automatically added to the 2026 voter roll. Please note: If you removed or changed your email on psfmember.org, you may not automatically be added to this year's voter roll. 

Reminder that if you were formerly a Managing member, your membership has been updated to Contributing as of June 25th, 2025, per a recent Bylaw change that merged Managing and Contributing memberships. 

If you’d like to learn more or sign up as a PSF Member, check out our membership types. You can check your membership status on your User Information page on psfmember.org (you will need to be logged in). If you have questions about your membership or the election please email psf-elections@pyfound.org

Inaugural Python Packaging Council Election: Voting is now open!

It’s time to cast your vote! Voting for the inaugural 2026 Python Packaging Council (PPC) Election is open now through September 15 at 2:00 pm UTC.

Find Your Ballot

If you are a voting member of the PSF who affirmed your intention to participate in this year’s election, you will receive an email today from “OpaVote Voting Link <noreply@opavote.com>” containing a link to your ballot. The subject line will be “Python Packaging Council Election 2026”.

If you haven’t received your ballot by September 2, first check your spam folder for a message from noreply@opavote.com. If you still can’t find the OpaVote email, please contact pc-elections@python.org. We can look into your account and confirm that we have the most up-to-date email address for you.

Review the Nominees

Please take some time to read all of the nominee statements before casting your ballot. Consider what each nominee brings to the Council, the priorities and perspectives they describe, and how you would like to see Python packaging evolve. You can also ask candidates questions directly in the PPC Nominations AMA threads on discuss.python.org.

Important: Review your selections carefully before pressing the big green vote button. Once your ballot has been cast, your vote cannot be changed.

Who Can Vote?

To vote in this election, you must be a Contributing, Supporting, or Fellow member of the PSF and have affirmed your intention to vote by August 25 at 2:00 pm UTC.

If you’d like to learn more about PSF membership or become a member, see the PSF Membership page. You can check your current membership status on your User Information page at psfmember.org while logged in.

If you have questions about your membership or the election, please contact pc-elections@python.org.