(A) Any initiative or referendum petition may be presented in separate parts, but each part of any initiative petition shall contain a full and correct copy of the title and text of the proposed ordinance or other measure, and each part of any referendum petition shall contain the number and a full and correct copy of the title of the ordinance or other measure sought to be referred. Each signer of any such petition must be an elector of the municipality in which the election, upon the ordinance or measure proposed by the initiative petition, or the ordinance or measure referred to by the referendum petition, is to be held. Petitions shall be governed in all other respects by the rules set forth in R.C. § 3501.38. In determining the validity of any such petition, all signatures which are found to be irregular shall be rejected, but no petition shall be declared invalid in its entirety when one or more signatures are found to be invalid, except when the number of valid signatures is found to be less than the total number required by this section.
(B) The petitions and signatures upon such petitions shall be prima facie presumed to be in all respects sufficient. No ordinance or other measure submitted to the electors of the municipality, and receiving an affirmative majority of the votes cast thereon, shall be held ineffective or void on account of the insufficiency of the petitions by which the submission of the ordinance or measure was procured, nor shall the rejection, by a majority of the votes cast thereon, of any ordinance or other measure submitted to the electors of the municipality, be held invalid for the insufficiency.
(C) Ordinances proposed by initiative petition and referendums receiving an affirmative majority of the votes cast thereon, shall become effective on the fifth day after the day on which the Board of Elections certifies the official vote on that question.
(R.C. § 731.31) (Rev. 2002)