(1) Any city not under a home rule charter, village, county, or school district nominating and electing members to its governing board at large may at a general election submit the question of nominating and electing members to its governing board by district or ward. Any city not under a home rule charter, village, county having not more than three hundred thousand inhabitants, or school district nominating and electing members to its governing board by district or ward may at a general election submit the question of nominating and electing members to its governing board at large.
(2) Petitions for submission of the question shall be prepared, circulated, and signed by registered voters of the city, village, county, or school district desiring to change the procedures for electing the governing board of the city, village, county, or school district. The petition or petitions shall be signed by registered voters equal in number to twenty-five percent of the votes cast for the person receiving the highest number of votes in the city, village, county, or school district at the preceding general election for electing the last member or members to its governing board. Each sheet of the petition shall have printed the full and correct copy of the question as it will appear on the official ballot. The petitions shall be filed with the county clerk or election commissioner not less than seventy days prior to the date of the general election, and no signatures shall be added or removed from the petitions after they have been so filed. Petitions shall be verified as provided in section 32-631. If the petition or petitions are found to contain the required number of valid signatures, the county clerk or election commissioner shall place the question on a separate ballot to be issued to
the registered voters of the city, village, county, or school district entitled to vote on the question.
(3)(a) Any city, village, county, or school district voting to change from nominating and electing the members of its governing board by district or ward to nominating and electing such members at large shall notify the public and instruct the filing officer to accept all filings on an at-large basis. Candidates shall be nominated and elected on an at-large basis at the next primary and general election following submission of the question. (b) Any city, village, county, or school district voting to change from nominating and electing the members of its governing board at large to nominating and electing by district or ward shall notify the public and instruct the filing officer to accept all filings by district or ward. Candidates shall be nominated and elected by district or ward at the next primary and general election following submission of the question. When district or ward elections have been approved by the majority of the electorate, the governing board of any city, village, county, or school district approving such question shall establish districts substantially equal in population as determined by the most recent federal decennial census except as provided in subsection
(2) of section 32-553.
(4) Except as provided in section 14-201, each city not under a home rule charter, village, county, and school district which votes to nominate and elect members to its governing board by district or ward shall establish districts or wards so that the members of its governing board may be nominated and elected from districts or wards bearing odd numbers at one election and from districts or wards bearing even numbers at the following election. Districts or wards shall be created not later than October 1 in the year following the general election at which the question
was voted upon. If the governing board fails to draw district boundaries by October 1, the procedures set forth in section 32-555 shall be followed.
