A federal judge Friday angrily ordered Colorado Secretary of State Mike Coffman to stop deleting names from the state’s voter registration rolls.

The judge’s order came in a telephone hearing this afternoon that was the latest clash between Coffman and a trio of advocacy groups who had sued Coffman over the purging of the voter rolls so close to the election.

Wednesday night, the two sides reached a settlement designed to ensure voters whose registrations were wrongfully canceled within the 90 days before the election wouldn’t be disenfranchised on Election Day.

But state officials acknowledged today that 146 more names had been purged since the settlement was reached.

U.S. District Judge John Kane said that was a violation of federal law. Kane warned that if Coffman doesn’t stop the practice, “he’ll be listening to me personally.”

He ordered the 146 voters to be put back on the rolls.

“The court,” said Jenny Flanagan, the executive director of Colorado Common Cause, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, “has now sent a clear and binding message to state and local election officials that every legitimate voter should be able to vote, every vote should be counted, and anyone who interferes with the voting process should be held accountable.”

In a statement, Coffman said he believed the judge’s original order did not require him to stop the purges but rather said the settlement left the “processes leading up to Election Day” unchanged.

“My office and the county clerks were in full compliance with the judge’s original order,” Coffman said. “As required after today’s court order by Judge Kane, I’m instructing the county clerks to reinstate the registrations canceled since 9 p.m. Wednesday evening.”

Colorado Common Cause, Mi Familia Vota and the Service Employees International Union — all groups Coffman today called “left-leaning” — argued in federal court that federal law prohibits Coffman from canceling voters from the voting rolls close to the election. The groups claim tens of thousands of voters may have been impacted by the purges, a number Coffman has vigorously disputed.

Coffman has said previously that he has followed the law and is allowed to cancel voter registrations this close to the election for a variety of reasons. Attorney General John Suthers, who, like Coffman, is a Republican, has said Coffman was legally allowed to cancel 2,454 duplicate voter registrations close to the election.

In his statement today, Coffman said that, of the 146 registrations ordered to be reinstated, 66 were canceled because of duplications, 62 were canceled because the voter moved out of state and 12 were canceled because the voter died. The remaining six registrations were canceled either because the potential voter was a convicted felon, was not a U.S. citizen or withdrew the application, he said.

Flanagan disputed Coffman’s interpretation of the settlement, calling the continued voter cancellations, “brazen.”

“The agreement reached on Wednesday provided a critical safeguard for voters who were wrongfully removed from Colorado’s registration list,” she said. “…Thankfully, the court has once again stepped in to put voters first.”

The settlement in the court case, reached Wednesday, requires Coffman to put together a list the day after the election of voters whose registrations were canceled within the 90 days before the election. Voters on that list who show up to vote on Election Day will cast provisional ballots, and those ballots will be given the presumption of eligibility, which gives them a clearer path to being counted than other provisional ballots.

Provisional ballots are counted after all the other ballots and only after they are verified as having been cast by an eligible voter. In 2004, about a quarter of the 51,529 provisional ballots cast in Colorado were thrown out.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

John Ingold: 303-954-1068 or jingold@denverpost.com