LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Hundreds of fired-up Michigan Democrats will vie Saturday to become national convention delegates, even though the state has been stripped of its delegates by the Democratic National Committee.

Party members plan to elect 83 delegates and 15 alternates at 15 district conventions around the state. Delegates will be allocated according to the results of the Jan. 15 presidential primary, which New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton won.

More delegates and alternates will be chosen in May. Michigan has 128 pledged delegates and 28 superdelegates who aren't pledged to a particular candidate.

Michigan Democrats are moving forward even though they and Florida Democrats lost their delegate spots after they broke party rules by holding presidential primaries in January.

Both states are working with the DNC and the campaigns of Clinton and Illinois Sen. Barack Obama to try to get their delegates seated at the Aug. 25-28 Democratic National Convention in Denver. So far, no agreements have been reached, but Michigan Democratic Chairman Mark Brewer remains optimistic.

"We continue to talk to the campaigns and to the DNC," he said. "We're not going to give up until this problem is fixed."

Saturday's conventions could get raucous. Obama, former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards and two other candidates pulled their names from the ballot, forcing their supporters to vote for Uncommitted.

About 450 people have registered to run for the 36 delegate and 2 alternate spots that will go to Uncommitted.

Brewer says the vast majority are Obama supporters, but he expects the competition to win a spot will be intense because there are just a few slots available at each convention site.

"People feel very passionately about their candidates, and I expect we're going to see a lot of passionate campaigns on Saturday," he said. "There may well be some lengthy caucuses on Saturday for Uncommitted. ... All those folks are entitled to run until one candidate gets a sufficient number of votes to be a delegate."

About 450 people also applied to run for 47 delegate and 13 alternate spots that will go to Clinton supporters, but the Clinton campaign has reduced the list to around 150 people, Brewer said. All of the spots still will be contested, but it should take fewer votes to reach a resolution.

Brewer said he doesn't expect Clinton backers will be able to nab any of the uncommitted spots.

"There's going to be pretty intensive questioning of these candidates by supporters of Senator Obama, and perhaps Senator Edwards as well, saying, 'You're officially uncommitted, but who in fact do you intend to vote for when you get to Denver?'" he said.

Obama leads nationally in the pledged delegate count, and has called for having the Michigan and Florida delegates split evenly between the two candidates. Clinton would prefer to have delegates decided based on her Michigan and Florida victories.

About 21,000 party members are eligible to vote at Saturday's district conventions, which are scheduled to start at 10 a.m. Ten of the conventions will take place at union halls, while the rest will take place at schools or other buildings.

Union members have traditionally gotten a large share of Michigan's Democratic National Convention spots. But with so many new voters attracted to the process by Obama, it's unclear who will win convention seats on Saturday.

Brewer said any subsequent agreements reached with the Clinton and Obama campaigns on how the delegates should be divided shouldn't affect the delegates chosen Saturday.

"If there's any adjustment in the current 73-55 ratio between the two candidates, we can easily make that adjustment" when the rest of the delegates are selected at a Democratic State Central Committee meeting in May, he said.

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On the Net:

Michigan Democratic Party: http://www.michigandems.com