Page:Leigh v. Hall.pdf/7

564 filed on July 7, 32 days after the publication. It is urged by the plaintiffs that the petition was not published 30 days before the filing of the petition.

We cannot agree with the plaintiffs for a number of reasons. We have previously held that the filing of several parts constitute but one petition. Such was the holding in Hammett v. Hodges, 104 Ark. 510, 149 S.W. 667, decided under our previous Initiative and Referendum Amendment (referred to as number ten in the case but more accurately number four) to the Constitution which was superseded by the present Amendment Seven. Although there was no provision for a thirty-day publication of the act in this previous Initiative and Referendum Amendment, the language with reference to filing petitions is practically the same as the language in the present Amendment Seven. The court, in passing upon the question of filing petitions, there held that all names in an initiated petition, even though on different sheets and filed on different dates should be considered as one petition. We there stated:

"We are of the opinion that the requisite number may be ascertained by adding together the names of the legal voters signed to the separate sheets that have been filed with the Secretary of State within the time prescribed by the act where these separate sheets, embodying the petition of the signers thereto, are in the form prescribed by the statute, and all containing the same subject-matter, the language of each petition being the same. The separate sheets, thus presented and filed in the contemplation of the Constitution and statute, constitute but one petition."

To support the above ruling, the court in the same case cited Bridewell v. Ward & Key, 72 Ark. 187, 79 S.W. 762, decided under our old three-mile local option law which provided for local option within three miles of any church or school upon petition for a majority of the voters within the three-mile area. Several petitions were filed with the county court, a remonstrance was filed and allowed by county court, whereupon it was