members of the House of Delegates, and duplicates thereof,
directly to the Governor; and the several clerks aforesaid
shall return to the Governor, within ten days after said
election, the number of ballots cast for or against the Con-
stitution and the number of blank ballots; and the Gov-
ernor, upon receiving the returns from the judges of elec-
tion, or the clerks as aforesaid, and ascertaining the aggre-
gate vote throughout the State, shall, by his proclamation,
make known the same; and if a majority of the votes cast
shall be for the adoption of this Constitution, it shall go into
effect on Saturday, the fifth day of October, eighteen hun-
dred and sixty-seven.

ARTICLE XVI.*
THE REFERENDUM.

SECTION 1. (a) The people reserve to themselves power
known as The Referendum, by petition to have submitted to
the registered voters of the State, to approve or reject at the
polls, any Act, or part of any Act of the General Assembly,
if approved by the Governor, or, if passed by the General
Assembly over the veto of the Governor.

(b) The provisions of this Article shall be self-execut-
ing; provided that additional legislation in furtherance
thereof and not in conflict therewith may be enacted.

SEC. 2. No law enacted by the General Assembly shall
take effect until the first day of June next after the session
at which it may be passed, unless it contain a section de-
claring such law an emergency law and necessary for the
immediate preservation of the public health or safety, and
passed upon a yea and nay vote supported by three-fifths of
all the members elected to each of the two Houses of the
General Assembly; provided, however, that said period of
suspension may be extended as provided in Section 3 (b)
hereof. If before said first day of June there shall have been
filed with the Secretary of the State a petition to refer to a
vote of the people any law or part of a law capable of refer-
endum, as in this Article provided, the same shall be re-
ferred by the Secretary of State to such vote, and shall not
become a law or take effect until thirty days after its ap-
proval by a majority of the electors voting thereon at the
next ensuing election held throughout the State for Mem-
bers of the House of Representatives of the United States.
An emergency law shall remain in force notwithstanding

*Added by Chapter 678, 1914. ratified November 2, 1915.