Section 6: Members of charter commission; boundaries of election districts
Section 6. (A.) A charter commission shall consist of fifteen registered voters of such county elected by official ballot, without party or political designation, at an election held in accordance with relevant provisions of general law and this chapter. In addition, each county commissioner, or his designee, and the chairman of the county advisory board, or his designee, shall be non-elected members of the charter commission. In order to take into account widely differing population sizes of counties, charter commission members shall be elected at large or individually by district or both as follows: where the inhabitants of a county number less than fifty thousand persons, the election of all charter commission members in such county shall be at large; where the inhabitants of a county number at least fifty thousand but less than two hundred thousand persons, five charter commission members shall be elected at large and ten shall be elected by district; where the inhabitants of a county number two hundred thousand persons or more, the election of all charter commission members shall be by district.
The boundaries of the districts, for the purposes of electing charter commission members, shall be determined by the state secretary; not later than June first of the year in which members are to be elected, by dividing the county into districts of contiguous territory so that each representative shall represent an equal number of inhabitants, as nearly as may be.
Such districts shall also be so formed that no town containing less than six thousand inhabitants shall be divided.
(B.) For the purpose of this section, population shall be determined from the latest federal census. The names of the at-large candidates and the names of the candidates from each district nominated in accordance with section five shall be placed on such ballot in alphabetical order, preceded by the instruction in subsection A of section four.
(C.) The provisions of chapter fifty-four regarding votes on amendments to the constitution shall govern the canvassing and counting of votes on the question and the custody and disposition of ballots and related records.
(D.) The secretary shall provide a thirty day comment and review period prior to a final determination of district boundaries.