in session for one hundred and twenty days and no longer
in each year; provided that they may by ordinance or resolu-
tion so arrange their sittings that the same may be held
continuously or otherwise, and provided further that the
Mayor may convene the City Council in extra session as he
may now do by the fourth section of the eleventh article of
the State Constitution.

ARTICLE XI-A.*
LOCAL LEGISLATION.

SECTION 1. On demand of the Mayor of Baltimore and
City Council of the City of Baltimore, or on petition bearing
the signatures of not less than 20 per cent of the registered
voters of said city or any county (provided, however, that
in any case 10,000 signatures shall be sufficient to complete
a petition), the Board of Election Supervisors of said city
or county shall provide at the next general or Congressional
election, occurring after such demand or the filing of such
petition, for the election of a charter board of eleven regis-
tered voters of said city or five registered voters in any such
counties. Nominations for members of said charter board
may be made not less than forty days prior to said election
by the Mayor of Baltimore and City Council of the City of
Baltimore or the County Commissioners of such county, or
not less than twenty days prior to said election by petition
bearing the signatures written in their own handwriting
(and not by their mark) of not less than 5 per cent of the
registered voters of the said City of Baltimore or said coun-
ty; provided, that in any case two thousand signatures of
registered voters shall be sufficient to complete any such
nominating petition, and if not more than eleven registered
voters of the City of Baltimore or not more than five reg-
istered voters in any such county are so nominated their
names shall not be printed on the ballot, but said eleven
registered voters in the City of Baltimore or five in such
county shall constitute said charter board from and after
the date of said election. At said election the ballot shall
contain the names of said nominees in alphabetical order
without any indication of the source of their nomination,
and shall also be so arranged as to permit the voter to vote
for or against the creation of said charter board, but the
vote cast against said creation shall not be held to bar the
voter from expressing his choice among the nominees for
said board, and if the majority of the votes cast for and
against the creation of said charter board shall be against

* Added by Chapter 416, 1814, ratified November 2, 1915..