The backers of Utah's open-space initiative are left in an unenviable time crunch. If all goes well, they will barely beat the deadline for the November general election ballot, and they will have precious little time to build their case with voters.

Blame a sloppily written state law defining the initiative process.

The Utah Supreme Court ruled last week that county clerks in Utah and Cache counties were wrong when they decided several signatures on the open-space petition were invalid because the addresses provided for those names did not match the addresses of those names on the rolls of registered voters. The court said people could easily have moved since the last election, and that county clerks could not set their own rules on such matters. Simply put, it wouldn't be fair for registered voters in one county to be held to different standards than those of another county.

But the court also suggested state lawmakers make the rules a little clearer.

Good idea.

We are sympathetic with lawmakers who wanted to make Utah's initiative process into something that takes real effort and dedication. A referendum is the people's last hope for enacting popular legislation that elected representatives, for whatever reason, refuse to pass. It is a last resort — and yet in some other states it has become almost a primary form of law-making.

The representative process comes complete with a host of built-in pressures that take the edge off extremist proposals. There are hearings with the public. There are politicians of opposing philosophies who temper legislation with amendments and counter-proposals. Finally, there is a public vote by the body of one house, followed by a similar process in the other body and consideration by the governor.

On the other hand, successful initiatives sail onto the ballot as initially written and then are voted up or down with no amendments. This process is too easily hijacked by special-interest groups.

But lawmakers shouldn't make the process completely prohibitive. In this case, they seemed to have given little thought to defining important procedures.

The open-space initiative qualifies as a last-resort measure that has popular support but almost no chance of passing the normal legislative process. It would raise $150 million through a 0.05 percent sales tax increase to preserve open spaces statewide.

Anyone looking to justify this initiative need look no further than the latest census figures, which show that about 10 percent of northern Utah's farmland has been lost to development over the past five years.

The tragedy is not that land is being developed. It is that amid the growth no one is setting aside large tracts of land for parks and recreation areas, the kinds of amenities that add to the quality of life. Once all the land is gone, the chance to preserve these spaces will be gone.

Too bad there isn't much time left to make the case.