the ohio democratic party sent 161 total delegates to the national convention. of those delegates, 141 were pledged and 20 unpledged. the 141 pledged delegates were allocated (pledged) to vote for a particular candidate at the national convention according to the results of ohio's democratic primary on march 4, 2008. the 20 unpledged delegates (popularly called "superdelegates" because each of their votes represented a personal decision rather than the decision of the voters) were free to vote for any candidate at the national convention and were selected by the ohio democratic party's officials.