Online Activists Push Michigan Penalties

Online Activists Push Michigan Penalties

Loosely organized on-line petitions are backing a proposal to seat the Michigan delegates elected in the too-early Jan. 15 primary, but punish the state by taking away its superdelegates.

The petitions were organized to counter a proposal by a leading Hillary Clinton supporter to seat Michigan's superdelegates with a full vote, but give the elected delegates a half vote each.

DNC member and Clinton superdelegate Joel Ferguson proposed the half-vote plan. It's getting opposition at Michigan Liberal and Firedoglake.

Ferguson gained some infamy just after Super Tuesday for caucus-bashing. "Superdelegates are not second-class delegates," he said Feb. 18. "The real second-class delegates are the delegates that are picked in red-state caucuses that are never going to vote Democratic."

At Talking Points Memo, William Allen Simpson writes that national party rules require that the number of actual attendees at Michigan's Apr. 19th congressional district conventions be used to allocate delegates. "Clinton registrants were frequently outnumbered two to one at the conventions, as much as four to one in some districts," says White, who also charges that Clinton operatives were campaigning in Michigan before the primary. If that can be proven, it would be a violation of party rules that could cost Clinton all of her Michigan delegates.