A state judge in Pennsylvania on Friday prohibited enforcement of a strongly contested law requiring voters to show state-approved identification.

Enforcement of the law, one of the toughest in the nation, had been blocked by judicial order in two prior elections, and the state had agreed not to require ID to vote in November. But poll officials were required to tell voters that they would have to show ID’s in the future or be turned away.

In an opinion issued on Friday afternoon, Judge Bernard L. McGinley of the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania noted that “the prior injunctions did not stop time,” and said that the ban on enforcing the law should be extended until the matter of whether to issue a permanent injunction on enforcement could be heard in court and decided on the merits of the case.

Jennifer R. Clarke, executive director of the Public Interest Law Center of Philadelphia, which represents one of the plaintiffs, called the new ruling “significant” because “it means we’ll have some peace and certainty until there’s a final ruling.” Without the more lasting injunction, she said, “it was very confusing and chaotic, I would say, for all sides last year regarding the law — no one knew what would happen.”