Sound Shore

Port Chester has scheduled the first two meeetings — Feb. 17 and 18 — to explain its new cumulative voting system for village trustees.

All six seats are up for grabs in the special trustee election June 15, the first since the 2006 voting rights lawsuit began. A series of public forums about cumulative voting, in English and in Spanish, are required under a federal consent decree. The court case found that the old at-large voting system denied Hispanic voters a chance to elect their preferred candidates.

The first meeting is for potential candidates and party representatives, who will have to adapt to a whole new way of strategizing. For starters, the parties must decide how many candidates to support.

Under cumulative voting, each voter will have six votes to cast, one for each open seat. A voter may put all six votes toward a particular candidate or spread them among several as they wish. The rules allow like-minded groups to channel their voting power.

Here are the details from a press release:

The Village of Port Chester will be hosting two informational meetings with FairVote about the new Cumulative Voting election system on Wednesday, February 17th and Thursday, February 18th.

On Wednesday, February 17th at 7:00 pm, persons interested in becoming candidates and political party representatives are  invited to learn about how the new cumulative voting system will work to better understand the impact on the candidate slating process.

On Thursday, February 18th at 7:30 pm, persons interested in volunteering with the upcoming voter education and voter  mobilization programs are invited to attend a meeting to sign up to help and learn more about the voter education and voter mobilization programs that will be going on in the months leading up to the June trustee election.

Both meetings will be held at the Village of Port Chester Senior Community Center located at 220 Grace Church Street in Port Chester.

The Village will be hosting many more voter education meetings in the upcoming months to familiarize voters with the new cumulative voting system. A calendar of these training forums and their locations will be available in the next few weeks.

Please contact Martha Lopez-Hanratty at 914-481-8036 if you have any questions.