the Constitution and the number of blank ballots; and the Gov-
ernor, upon receiving the returns from the judges of election,
or the clerks as aforesaid, and ascertaining the aggregate 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 hundred 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 As-
sembly over the veto of the Governor.

(b) The provisions of this Article shall be self-executing;
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 declaring
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 ex-
tended 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 referendum, as in this Article provided, the
same shall be referred by the Secretary of State to such vote,
and shall not become a law or take effect until thirty days after
its approval by a majority of the electors voting thereon at the
next ensuing election held throughout the State for Members
of the House of Representatives of the United States. An
emergency law shall remain in force notwithstanding such
petition, but shall stand repealed thirty days after having been
rejected by a majority of the qualified electors voting thereon;
provided, however, that no measure creating or abolishing any
office, or changing the salary, term or duty of any officer, or
granting any franchise or special privilege, or creating any
vested right or interest, shall be enacted as an emergency law.

• Added by Chapter 673, 1914, ratified November 2, 1915