Section 4.

Forms of Government

(1) The legislature shall provide methods for governing local government units and procedures for incorporating, classifying, merging, consolidating, and dissolving such units, and altering their boundaries. The legislature shall provide such optional or alternative forms of government that each unit or combination of units may adopt, amend, or abandon an optional or alternative form by majority of those voting on the question.
(2) One optional form of county government includes, but is not limited to, the election of three county commissioners, a clerk and recorder, a clerk of district court, a county attorney, a sheriff, a treasurer, a surveyor, a county superintendent of schools, and assessor, a coroner, and a public administrator. The terms, qualifications, duties, and compensation of those offices shall be provided by law. The Board of county commissioners may consolidate two or more such offices. The Boards of two or more counties may provide for a joint office and for the election of one official to perform the duties of any such office in those counties.

In each county there shall be elected three County Commissioners, whose term of office shall be six years; provided that each county in the State of Montana shall be divided into three Commissioner Districts, to be designated as Commissioner Districts, numbers one, two and three respectively.

The Board of County Commissioners shall in every county in the State of Montana; at their regular session, on the first Monday in May, 1929, or as soon thereafter as possible, not exceeding sixty days thereafter, meet and by and under the direction of the District Court Judge or Judges of said county, divide their respective counties into three Commissioner Districts as compact and equal in population and area as possible, and number them respectively, one, two and three, and when such division has been made, there shall be filed in the office of the County Clerk and Recorder of each county, a certificate designating the metes and bounds of the boundary lines and limits of each of said Commissioners Districts, which certificate shall be signed by said Judge or Judges; provided, also that at the first regular session of any newly organized and created county, the said Board of County Commissioners, by and under the direction of the District Court Judge or Judges o said county, shall divide such new county into Commissioner Districts as herein provided.
Upon such divisions, the Board of County Commissioners shall assign its members to such districts in the following manner; each member of the said Board then in service shall be assigned to the district in which he is residing or the nearest thereto; the senior member of the Board in service to be assigned to the Commissioner District No. 1, the next member in seniority to be assigned to Commissioner District No. 2, and the junior member of the board to be assigned to Commissioner District No. 3; provided, that at the first general election of any newly created and organized county, the commissioner for District No. 1, shall be elected for two years, for No. 2, for four years, and for No. 3, for six years, and biennialy thereafter there shall be one Commissioner elected to take the place of the retiring Commissioner, who shall hold his office for six years.

That the Board of County Commissioners by and under the direction of the District Court Judge or Judges of said County, for the purpose of equalizing in population and area such Commissioner Districts, may change the boundaries of any or all of the Commissioner Districts in their respective county by filing in the office of the County Clerk ad Recorder of such county, a certificate signed by said Judge or Judges designating by metes and bounds the boundary lines of each of said Commissioner Districts s changed, and such change in any or all the districts in such county, shall become effective from and after filing of such certificate; provided, however, that the boundaries of no Commissioner District shall at any time be changed in such a manner as to affect the term of office of any County Commissioner who has been elected, and whose term of office has not expired; and provided, further, that no change in the boundaries of any Commissioner District shall be made within six months next preceding a general election.

At the general election to be held in 1930, and thereafter at each general election, the member or members of the Board to be elected, shall be selected from the residents and electors of the district or districts in which the vacancy occurs, but the election of such member or members of the Board shall be submitted to the entire electorate of the county, provided, however, that no one shall be elected as a member of said board, who has not resided in said district for at least two years next preceding the time when he shall become a candidate for said office.

When a vacancy occurs in the Board of County Commissioners the Judge or Judges of the Judicial District in which the vacancy occurs, shall appoint someone residing in such Commissioner District where the vacancy occurs, to fill the office until the next general election when a Commissioner shall be elected to fill the unexpired term.

In each county there shall be elected three county commissioners whose term of office shall be four years. A vacancy in the board of county commissioners shall be filled by appointment by the district judge of the district in which the vacancy occurs.