760                               Laws of Maryland                      [Ch. 357

regular session. [No change in the number of members of the
Senate or House of Delegates shall be provided in this plan.] The
plan shall conform to Sections, 2, 3 and 4 of this Article. Following
each decennial census the General Assembly shall by [law enact]
joint resolution adopt a plan [for legislative districting and appor-
tionment] setting forth the boundaries of the forty seven (47)
legislative districts for the election of members of the Senate and
the House of Delegates, which plan shall conform to Sections 2, 3
and 4 of this Article. If a plan has been adopted by the General
Assembly by the forty-fifth day after the opening of the regular
session of the General Assembly in the third year following the
1970 census and in the second year following every census thereafter,
the plan adopted by the General Assembly shall become law. If no
plan has been [enacted] adopted by the General Assembly for these
purposes by the forty-fifth day after the opening of the regular
session of the General Assembly [of] in the [second] third year
following the 1970 census and in the second year following
every census thereafter, the plan presented to the General Assembly
by the Governor shall become law. Upon petition of any registered
voter, the Court of Appeals shall have original jurisdiction to review
the legislative districting [and apportionment] of the State and
may grant appropriate relief, if it finds that the districting [and
apportioning] of the State is not consistent with requirement of
either the Constitution of the United States of America or the Con-
stitution of Maryland. Upon the adoption by the qualified voters of
the State in 1972 of the above amendments to this Section, any
legislative districting and apportionment plan submitted by the
Governor or adopted by the General Assembly pursuant to the pro-
visions of this Section as they existed immediately prior to the
adoption in 1972 of the said amendments, shall be void and of no
effect.

Sec. 2. And be it further enacted, That the aforegoing Sections
hereby proposed as amendments to the Constitution of Maryland,
at the next general election to be held in this State in November
1972, shall be submitted to the legal and qualified voters thereof
for their adoption or rejection in pursuance of directions contained
in Article 14 of the Constitution of this State; and at this general
election, the vote on this proposed amendment to the Constitution
shall be by ballot, and upon each ballot there shall be printed the
words "For the Constitutional Amendments" and "Against the
Constitutional Amendments" as now provided by law, and, immedi-
ately after the election, all returns shall be made to the Governor
of the vote for and against the proposed amendment, as directed by
Article 14 of the Constitution, and further proceedings had in accord-
ance with Article 14.

Approved May 6, 1971.

CHAPTER 357
(House Bill 524)

AN ACT to propose an amendment to Article 7 of the Declaration of
Rights of the Constitution of Maryland, deleting archaic language
describing those citizens entitled to vote, and providing for the