Florida, Michigan get all delegates but each gets half vote

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Members of a Democratic rules committee voted on Saturday to seat all of Florida's and Michigan's delegation to the party's national convention and give their delegates a half vote each.

A first vote, which would have seated all of Florida's delegation with full voting privileges, failed.

After the results were announced, spectators started to boo and his and some started chanting, "Denver! Denver!" the site of the party's convention in August.

Democrats fear that a protracted battle over the issue all the way to the convention could split the party and weaken it's chances of winning the White House in November.

The Democratic National Committee's Rules and Bylaws Committee is hearing the two states' appeals on its decision to strip all of their delegates because they moved their primary contests earlier on the calendar.

Lawyers for the committee advised in a memo CNN obtained this week that the committee's rules call for 50 percent of the delegations to be seated.

Seating all of the states' delegates is not on the table, the committee Co-chairwoman Alexis Herman said in her opening remarks.

"We had many states that wanted to violate the timing. We needed to send a very strong signal in order to prevent additional states from moving forward," Herman said.

After meeting for about five hours, the hearing broke for lunch. The audience of 500 people and those out in hallways appeared to grow more boisterous as the hearing went on, cheering and booing speakers.

Supporters of Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama had disagreed over how best to handle the situation.

Both Democratic presidential hopefuls have said they want the Florida and Michigan delegates to attend the convention. CNN.com/Live is carrying the meeting in its entirety.

Clinton's campaign is calling for the results of the states' primaries to be honored and the delegates awarded based on the results. That approach would help her chip away at Obama's lead in pledged delegates because she handily won both states and would be awarded a greater share of the delegates.

Obama's campaign disagrees, saying he followed the rules, took his name off of the Michigan ballot and did not campaign in either state. Video See what the fuss is all about »

The chairman of Michigan's Democratic Party called on the committee to seat Michigan's delegation in full, with full voting rights, and divide the pledged delegates between Clinton and Obama, 69-59.

In Michigan, Clinton got 55 percent of the vote, and 40 percent of Democrats voted for an uncommitted slate.

Mark Brewer admitted under questioning from the panel that the party had not followed any set guidelines in determining the split but had reached this compromise because "we have to do something in this situation; we can't do nothing. I wish there were more, I wish it were better, but it's all we have."

Florida, Michigan get all delegates, but each gets half vote - CNN.com

It seems the Democratic version of "Let every vote count" means "even if it's partially counted"...

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They created this mess but they do have the right to set their own rules and the right to live with the concequences.I would have preferred that none of the votes were counted. Enforce the rules or get rid of them..

I second that thought. Basic playground understanding of right and wrong. You call the rules before you play marbles. Somebody wants to change them in the middle of the game-you throw him out of the game and nobody will play with him anymore. Not a hard thing to understand.

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But the mistake made was that, in originally creating the rules, they never thought they'd be used in a situation where two swing states would be so important in an extremely close election...

They thought they could just punish a state or two and life would continue without obstacles...

A decision they now regret...

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