A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
AN ACT to amend the north carolina constitution to expand the house of representatives by adding one member.
The General Assembly of North Carolina enacts:
SECTION 1.  Section 4 of Article II of the North Carolina Constitution reads as rewritten:
"Sec. 4. Number of Representatives.
The House of Representatives shall be composed of 121 Representatives, biennially chosen by ballot.
SECTION 2.  Section 5 of Article II of the North Carolina Constitution reads as rewritten:
"Sec. 5. Representative districts; apportionment of Representatives.
The Representatives shall be elected from districts, except for the elections from 2004 through 2010, one member of the House of Representatives shall be elected at large by the voters of the entire State. The General Assembly, at the first regular session convening after the return of every decennial census of population taken by order of Congress, shall revise the representative districts and the apportionment of Representatives among those districts, subject to the following requirements:
(1)	Each Representative shall represent, as nearly as may be, an equal number of inhabitants, the number of inhabitants that each Representative represents being determined for this purpose by dividing the population of the district that he represents by the number of Representatives apportioned to that district;
(2)	Each representative district shall at all times consist of contiguous territory;
(3)	No county shall be divided in the formation of a representative district;
(4)	When established, the representative districts and the apportionment of Representatives shall remain unaltered until the return of another decennial census of population taken by order of Congress.
SECTION 3.  The amendments set out in Sections 1 and 2 of this act shall be submitted to the qualified voters of the State at the statewide general election in November of 2004, which election shall be conducted under the laws then governing elections in the State.  Ballots, voting systems, or both may be used in accordance with Chapter 163 of the General Statutes.  The question to be used in the voting systems and ballots shall be:
"[ ] FOR	[ ] AGAINST
Constitutional amendments adding an additional member of the House of Representatives so it will have an odd number of members."
SECTION 4.  Pending the vote on the constitutional amendments in the 2004 statewide general election, an additional member of the House of Representatives shall be elected on a statewide basis in 2004. The election shall be conducted under the provisions of Chapter 163 of the General Statutes applicable to statewide officers.
SECTION 5.  If a majority of votes cast on the question are in favor of the amendments set out in Sections 1 and 2 of this act, the State Board of Elections shall certify the amendments to the Secretary of State whereupon the amendments shall become effective.  The Secretary of State shall enroll the amendments so certified among the permanent records of that office.   If a majority of votes are not cast in favor of the amendments set out in Sections 1 and 2 of this act, then the election for the additional at‑large statewide member of the House of Representatives at the 2004 general election provided by Section 4 of this act is void.
SECTION 6.  This act is effective when it becomes law.