The 90-member council is elected every four years by proportional representation in a single constituency comprising the citizens resident in the canton, and meets at the Ursoline Palace in the capital, Bellinzona.

[1] The Grand Council appoints the members of the canton's judiciary (save for justices of the peace, who are elected in their area by the citizens) and public prosecutors.

The legislative and executive organs first convened in the Palace on 20 May 1803, the year of the Canton's admission to the Confederation, at a Benedictine monastery.

In 1848, the Law on the Suppression of Monasteries forced the Ursuline nuns to leave, and the premises have been solely occupied by the legislative and executives organs of the Canton of Ticino since.

[3] The first eleven women were elected to the Grand Council of Ticino in 1971, they were Ersilia Fossati, Marili Terribilini-Fluck, Elsa Franconi-Poretti, Linda Brenni, Elda Marazzi, Alice Moretti, Dina Paltenghi-Gardosi, Dionigia Duchini, Rosita Genardini, Rosita Mattei and Ilda Rossi.