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Who can stand as a candidate?

Council groups' contact details

Establishing an electoral alliance or an electoral coalition

The candidate list

Establishing an electoral alliance in brief

Who can stand as a candidate?

You can stand as a candidate and vote if you are a full or pensioner member of TEK or a full or pensioner member of TFiF-TEK, and your membership is valid on 1 January 2026. Student members cannot be candidates or vote in the elections, but the council's student representatives are chosen through local associations in university cities.

Constituencies and electoral areas

TEK elections have two constituencies, one for Tekniikan Akateemiset (TA) and another for Tekniska Föreningen i Finland (TFiF). 

As a member of Tekniikan Akateemiset ry, you can stand as a candidate in any electoral area of the TA constituency, regardless of your place of residence. When voting, you must select a candidate from your own electoral area. Your electoral area is determined by your place of residence in TEK’s member register on 1 January 2026. If you live abroad, you can vote in any of the electoral areas.  

TFiF-TEK members stand for election and vote in the TFiF constituency. TFiF-TEK members may only vote for candidates from this constituency. 

The electoral areas of the Tekniikan Akateemiset ry’s (TA) constituency (66 seats in total) 

Southern electoral area: Uusimaa (32 seats) 

Western electoral area: Åland Islands, South Ostrobothnia, Kanta-Häme, Central Ostrobothnia, Central Finland, Pirkanmaa, Ostrobothnia, Päijät-Häme*, Satakunta, and Southwest Finland (21 seats) 

Eastern electoral area: South Karelia, South Savo, Kymenlaakso, North Karelia, and North Savo (6 seats) 

Northern electoral area: Kainuu, Lapland, and North Ostrobothnia (7 seats)  

TFiF’s constituency covers the whole of Finland (4 seats) 

*In these elections, Iitti belongs to Päijät-Häme.

How to stand as a candidate?  

The nomination of candidates begins on 9 January 2026 at 12.00 noon and ends on 9 February 2026 at 12.00 noon. Confirmation of the candidacy will be sent to the candidates on 11 February 2026. 

Candidates are always nominated through an electoral alliance. You can contact one of the current council groups for more information or establish your own electoral alliance, instructions below.

Establishing an electoral alliance

At least three members of Tekniikan Akateemiset ry (TA) or TFiF–TEK who are eligible for election may sign an agreement to establish an electoral alliance. Those full or pensioner members whose membership is valid on 1 January 2026 are eligible for election. A member can only be signatory to one electoral alliance; the same persons cannot establish several electoral alliances.

Members establish an electoral alliance by signing an agreement (sopimuskirja in Finnish).

The electoral alliance will be established in the constituency of either Tekniikan Akateemiset ry (TA) or Tekniska Föreningen i Finland r.f. (TFiF), depending on whether the members of the electoral alliance are TA members or TFiF-TEK members. All founders and candidates of the electoral alliance must be from the same constituency. The constituency is selected in the electoral alliance agreement.  

The constituency of Tekniikan Akateemiset ry consists of four electoral areas. In its agreement, the electoral alliance must select all electoral areas (southern/western/eastern/northern) for which the electoral alliance is nominating candidates. Not all selected areas need to have candidates. 

In the agreement, the electoral alliance may also request IDs for the electronic candidate registration tool. To allow the electoral alliance to use the electronic candidate registration tool, the electoral alliance agreement should be returned as early as possible.  

Download a pdf: Electoral alliance agreement template 2026 (in Finnish)

The electoral alliance agreement must be signed electronically or by hand and submitted to TEK’s office no later than 12.00 noon on 9 February 2026.

There are three ways to submit the agreement: 

• signed electronically,
• signed by hand and delivered in person to TEK info, Ratavartijankatu 2 A, 00520 Helsinki,
• or signed by hand, scanned, and sent to vaalit@tek.fi.

The electoral alliance must also submit a list of its candidates by 12.00 noon on 9 February 2026. If the electoral alliance uses the electronic candidate registration tool, the list of candidates will be automatically sent from the tool to TEK’s office after the nomination period has ended.

Electronic signature

You can use any electronic signature service or ask TEK to help you with the electronic signature. 

Please note that there is a small delay in TEK’s services – make sure you submit the agreement early enough: no later than 4 February 2026 so that the signatures can be made in time. Submit the agreement to be signed complete with other required information to vaalit@tek.fi. 

Candidate nomination before 9 January 2026

If the electoral alliance wishes to start collecting candidates in the candidate registration tool before 9 January 2026, they can submit the agreement and already request IDs for the candidate registration tool earlier. When using the candidate registration tool, candidates can be added to the future candidate list before the official start of the nomination period. However, the candidates cannot accept or reject their candidacy before 9 January 2026.

Once the nomination of candidates has begun on 9 January 2026, the eligibility of all candidates on the lists will be checked, and only the eligible candidates will remain in the system. Starting from 12.00 noon on 9 January 2026, the founders of electoral alliances may send a message to their candidates, through which the candidates can accept or decline their candidacy. The electoral alliances will also officially enter into force on 9 January 2026, when the eligibility of the signatories of the electoral alliances has been verified.

Establishing a coalition

If they so wish, the electoral alliances can form a coalition within their own constituency. The coalition agreement must also be signed electronically or by hand, and delivered to TEK’s office or sent by email to vaalit@tek.fi, no later than 9 February 2026 at 12.00 noon.  

Download a pdf: Coalition agreement 2026 (in Finnish)

Candidate list

In addition to the agreement, an electoral alliance must submit a list of candidates containing the necessary information on the electoral alliance’s candidates. The list of candidates must be submitted to TEK’s office by 12.00 noon on 9 February 2026. 

Electronic candidate registration tool 

TEK’s elections use an electronic candidate registration tool, through which electoral alliances can collect and submit their lists of candidates. The IDs for the tool are requested in the electoral alliance agreement, which should be submitted to TEK's office as early as possible.  

Starting on 18 November 2025 , we will send IDs for the electronic candidate registration tool for those signatories of the electoral alliance who have requested the IDs in the electoral alliance agreement. The IDs are for personal use. It is possible to list candidates in the candidate registration tool already before the official nomination period begins, but the candidates cannot accept or reject their candidacy until from 9 January 2026 onwards.

If an electoral alliance in TA’s constituency uses the candidate registration tool, the electoral alliance must collect the details of candidates from every electoral area in the candidate registration tool.

If an electoral alliance wishes to discontinue the use of the electronic candidate registration tool at a later date, the electoral alliance must notify TEK’s office in writing by 12.00 noon on 9 February 2026. If no notification has been submitted, the electronic list is considered to be a valid list.

Maximum number of candidates

An electoral alliance may put forward two times the number of representatives to be elected from the electoral area as candidates, plus one candidate for possible deputy membership. For example, if five candidates are elected from an electoral area, the electoral alliance may appoint 5 + 5 + 1 = 11 candidates for that area.  

No one may stand as a candidate more than once in the same election. If the same person has been nominated in both the electronic candidate registration tool and on other candidate lists, only the nomination from the electronic tool will be accepted. 

Maximum number of candidates in TA’s electoral areas and TFiF’s constituency

• southern electoral area 65 candidates
• western electoral area 43 candidates
• eastern electoral area 13 candidates
• northern electoral area 15 candidates
• TFiF’s constituency nine candidates

Information collected and published on candidates

Information collected by electoral officers and founders of the electoral alliances

The following information is required for all candidates on the candidate list of an electoral alliance:  

• Given names and surname
• Date of birth
• Email address
• Phone number

All the above information on the candidates must be provided in order for them to be eligible for candidacy.  

The information collected by the electoral officers and the founders of the electoral alliance is needed to confirm candidacy.

Information published on candidates

The following candidate information will be published as part of electoral communications: 

• First name and surname (based on the details in the OmaTEK member portal on 25 February 2026)
• Home municipality (based on the details in the OmaTEK member portal on 25 February 2026)
• Candidate number issued by the Election Committee
• Electoral alliance
• The constituency (TA or TFiF), and for Tekniikan Akateemiset ry, the electoral area

This information is used, for example, in TEK's candidate compilation list, the election compass, and the election results publications. When standing as a candidate in TEK elections, the candidate agrees that the information mentioned above will be used and published as part of the electoral communications. The candidate information will remain public in the election results also after the elections.

The candidate may choose to publish additional information, e.g. in the election compass. 

Read more about the handling of personal data from the Privacy statement for TEK’s General Council elections.

Submitting the list of candidates to TEK’s office  

The list of candidates must be submitted to TEK’s office by 12.00 noon on 9 February 2026. 

If you use the electronic candidate registration tool, the system will automatically close at 12.00 noon on 9 February 2026 and submit the current candidate lists to TEK. 

The last list returned is valid. If you use the electronic candidate registration tool, the list submitted from the tool will automatically be the last list returned.