The Michigan Democratic Party will hold congressional district conventions on Saturday, April 19, at 10 am, to choose delegates to the national convention. The party will choose 47 Clinton delegates and 36 “uncommitted” delegates (who will really be Obama delegates). This ratio is determined by the results of the January 15, 2008 presidential primary, in which the names on the ballot were Clinton, Kucinich, Dodd, Gravel, and “uncommitted.” Clinton won the primary, but “uncommitted” was a strong second. The Michigan Democratic Party will choose 45 more delegates at a meeting of the State Central Committee on May 17. There is no guarantee that these delegates will be seated, since the Michigan primary was so early that it violated party rules.

The Michigan Democratic Party is thus acting similarly to the Florida Democratic Party, which already chose delegates even though the Florida delegates also face the danger of not being seated. Since the national party did agree to make hotel reservations for the Florida delegates, presumably the national party will treat the Michigan delegates similarly. Thanks to Thomas Jones for this news.

On April 16, the Washington Secretary of State’s office announced the details of how ballots will look in this year’s “top-two” primary and general elections. Under each candidate’s name will appear “Prefers (example) Party”. The candidate is free to choose any party name if it is 16 letters or fewer, and is not obscene. The 16-letter limit means that no one can choose “Socialist Workers” or “Democratic Republican”. The Secretary of State says the candidate must figure out an abbreviation if the party of “preference” is longer than 16 letters (a blank space between two words counts, just as though it were a separate letter) . Since Socialist Workers Party candidates have regularly appeared on the ballot with the full party name in many Washington state elections ever since 1948, it seems somewhat likely that the party could win a lawsuit over the 16-character limit. The limit wouldn’t be so strict, except that space is needed for the word “prefers”.

Thanks to Steve Rankin for this news. Here is a news story about the regulations.

On April 14, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear Schaefer v Lamone, no. 07-1143. The case challenged Maryland’s law that uses alphabetical order of candidates’ names, to determine the order of candidates on primary ballots. The plaintiff had argued in favor of either rotation of names, or a random procedure for deciding the order of names on the ballot.