The initiative is actually to the people, not the Legislature, and critics say it should not go onto the ballot because the public was misled. But Reed thinks otherwise.

"We do not choose to disenfranchise 300,000 voters because the format in the petition itself was incorrect," said Reed's spokesman, David Ammons, adding that the error by Yes on 1029 sponsors was "not a fatal flaw."

Typically, Ammons said, challenges to an initiative must wait until after an election, and elections department policy is to "err on the side of going forward."

"Unless a court tells us otherwise, we're planning on proceeding," he said of the signature checking later this month to verify 225,000 valid voter signatures to qualify for the ballot.

Petitions for Tim Eyman's I-985 will be checked first, followed by those for I-1000, the assisted-suicide measure, then I-1029.

A letter from the Attorney General's Office is in the works, explaining the agency's legal position to critics of I-1029. It could be released early next week, Ammons said.

I-1029 would require all long-term-care workers to earn state certification, require criminal background checks for all workers, and boost training requirements from 34 to 75 hours. That is far more hours than what state lawmakers wanted to pay for earlier this year.

Lawyers for the Community Care Coalition of Washington sent a letter to Reed last week urging him to reject the petitions. It's not clear whether they will sue if Reed moves ahead with counting signatures.

"It would be a dangerous precedent to allow petitions to qualify a measure for the general election ballot without clearly indicating they are for the purpose of submitting an initiative to the general election ballot," Olympia attorneys Kathleen Benedict and Narda Pierce wrote to Reed.

"This precedent would allow an initiative sponsor to create ambiguities about which of the two initiative processes were involved, and decide at a later date whether to argue the initiative was intended to be an initiative to the Legislature or an initiative to the people," they added.

Deb Murphy, chief executive officer for Aging Services of Washington and a member of the coalition, said in an e-mail that her group is waiting to see what Reed's lawyers say before deciding what action to take, including a legal challenge.

Spokesmen for the anti-1029 campaign declined to comment.

Meanwhile, backers of I-1029 are building a grassroots support base but have hired legal counsel just in case, campaign manager Jeff Parsons said. He said the campaign won't be hampered by a legal tussle and would not launch its major media campaign until late September or early October.

"I think this was their first salvo to obviously test the waters," Parsons said. "I think the basics of it is that 315,000 people signed the petition understanding they wanted better health care for seniors and developmentally disabled adults, that workers got more training and to close a loophole on background checks."

Brad Shannon is political editor for The Olympian. He can be reached at 360-753-1688 or bshannon@theolympian.com.