With Referendum 71 appearing to have just enough signatures to qualify for the Washington state ballot, it's time for the legal challenges. Two interesting issues are being raised in court by opponents of the referendum (who are supporters of gay rights and same-sex marriage. 71 is a referendum of a law granting the rights of married couples to domestic partners in Washington).

1. What happens if petition circulators screw up? Circulators are supposed to sign and attest each page of signatures they collect. Inevitably, some simply forget. The Washington Secretary of State has decided to count those signatures -- about 2,000 -- anyway. Usually, this problem would be too small to matter, but Referendum 71 appears to have less than 1,000 signatures more than the requirement.

2. What happens if the person signing the petition wasn't a registered voter at the moment he or she signed? It's common practice -- in Washington state and elsewhere -- for petition circulators, when they encounter someone who isn't a registered voter, to have that person sign a registration form and then sign petitions. This is a very good thing -- petition circulators register hundreds of thousands of voters each year. But Referendum 71 opponents want to challenge the signatures in this case. The Washington Secretary of State instructed counters to check that signers were registered to vote -- but not to check the date.

I'm sympathetic to the desire of Referendum 71 opponents to uphold domestic partnership rights and try to keep the measure off the ballot. That said, though, the Washington Secretary of State -- by counting signatures from unsigned petitions and from people who became registered after signing -- made the right call on both issues. The state's role is to be neutral on the issue but to defend the rights of people to petition their government. Referendum 71 opponents should accept that, and instead devote themselves to the work of winning at the ballot.