LANSING, Mich. (AP) — The state House on Monday voted to restore to the ballot the names of four Democratic presidential candidates who withdrew earlier from Michigan's Jan. 15 primary, but failed to put the bill into effect in time for the election.

The Senate and House could try again Tuesday to give the bill immediate effect, but some labor groups that support candidate John Edwards are trying to block the move.

House Speaker Andy Dillon, D-Redford, said he's confident there will enough House votes Tuesday to give the measure immediate effect if the Republican-led Senate sends the measure back after voting for it.

A spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop, R-Rochester, vowed the chamber will move swiftly but accused Democrats of "doing the bidding" of their party leaders by trying to obstruct the primary.

"This is not brain surgery," Matt Marsden said.

Before passing the bill 63-35, the House changed it to address a part of the presidential primary law that lower courts had found unconstitutional but that passed muster with the Michigan Supreme Court last week.

The law requires all primary voters to tell an election clerk whether they want a Democratic or Republican ballot, information that was supposed to go only to the state GOP and Democratic parties. The bill would let anyone see which voters selected Republican or Democratic ballots, potentially opening the door to criticism about voter privacy.

It also would change when school board elections could be held and let local clerks mail absentee ballot applications to voters without first needing a request from those voters. Many clerks had routinely mailed absentee ballots to seniors or others who usually voted absentee, but a court decision had threatened the legality of that practice.

Edwards, Barack Obama, Joe Biden and Bill Richardson last month pulled their names from the ballot because the state violated Democratic National Committee rules by moving up its election.

That left voters a choice of only Hillary Rodham Clinton, Dennis Kucinich, Chris Dodd or Mike Gravel on the Democratic ballot, while all the Republican candidates are on the GOP ballot.

With Clinton the only Democratic front-runner on the ballot, some feared the primary would just be a beauty contest on the Democratic side, taking away the primary's importance.

The Edwards, Obama, Biden and Richardson campaigns had no immediate comment on the possibility the candidates would appear on the ballot after all.

DNC member Debbie Dingell, a party activist who has been pushing for the Jan. 15 date that makes Michigan the second presidential primary after New Hampshire, said she's optimistic lawmakers on Tuesday will vote to put the bill into effect in time for the election.

"The leadership of the party is continuing efforts to make sure voters in January have a chance to vote for all of the candidates," she said. "There's still an opportunity to make Michigan the equivalent of Iowa and New Hampshire in January."

Bills need to win only a majority of lawmakers' votes to pass, but must get two-thirds support to gain immediate effect.

Dillon, who previously opposed the primary, said once the state Supreme Court gave the go-ahead for the primary, he figured Democrats and not just Republicans should have a voice in selecting the presidential nominees, one reason he now supports the bill.

A primary will be more democratic than a caucus, he said, because it could draw millions of voters. The 2004 Democratic presidential caucus drew only around 160,000 voters, even though voting was done over the Internet, by mail and in person.

Democratic activists have been pushing to restore all eight candidates to the ballot to give voters a broader choice and to make the candidates pay more attention to Michigan issues.

The slow pace of the legislation has elections officials warning that they'll be hard-pressed to get ready in the less than 60 days remaining before Jan. 15. Election clerks face a Saturday deadline to begin mailing absentee ballot applications, one reason some election clerks already have had ballots printed without the four Democratic candidates' names.

Those ballots will have to be reprinted if the Legislature and Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm agree to put Obama, Edwards, Biden and Richardson back on the ballot.

All eight Democratic candidates have agreed not to campaign in Michigan and Florida because they broke DNC rules by moving their primaries ahead of Feb. 5. The Republican presidential candidates all participated in a presidential debate in Dearborn last month and some have campaigned here more often.