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Madison — Just 14 hours after the U.S. Supreme Court blocked Wisconsin's voter ID law for the Nov. 4 election, five appeals court judges Friday issued a blistering opinion calling allegations of voter impersonation fraud "a mere fig leaf for efforts to disenfranchise voters likely to vote for the political party that does not control the state government."

"Some of the 'evidence' of voter-impersonation fraud is downright goofy, if not paranoid, such as the nonexistent buses that according to the 'True the Vote' movement transport foreigners and reservation Indians to polling places," wrote Judge Richard A. Posner of the 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.

Posner, who was appointed to the federal bench by President Ronald Reagan in 1981, was joined by four others in his dissenting opinion. The five other judges on the court did not spell out their views on the ID requirement.

The latest ruling had no immediate practical effect, and the voter ID law remains blocked for the election.

Posner is one of the most influential judges in the country, and his writing may persuade the U.S. Supreme Court if it ultimately decides to scrutinize Wisconsin's voter ID law.His views on voter ID are seen as key because seven years ago he wrote an opinion upholding Indiana's law requiring identification at the polls.

Thursday's decision by the Supreme Court marked the second time in a week the nation's highest court handed down a ruling on a Wisconsin law. On Monday, the court issued an order allowing same-sex couples to get married in Wisconsin and four other states.

Republican Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen has said he is considering ways to try to put the voter ID law back in place for the Nov. 4 election between GOP Gov. Scott Walker and Democrat Mary Burke.

But two professors who specialize in election law — Rick Hasen at the University of California, Irvine, and Daniel Tokaji at the Moritz College of Law at Ohio State University — said the ID requirement was unlikely to be in place for this election, given the Supreme Court's decision.

The high court, however, could allow the law to take effect for future elections, they said.

"I don't think this is an indication of how the court will rule on the merits," Tokaji said.

Hasen, author of the 2012 book "The Voting Wars," wrote on his blog Friday that the high court appeared to stop the voter ID requirement because it had been put in place so close to an election.

Clerks were quick to respond to the high court's decision.

Neil Albrecht, executive director of the Milwaukee Election Commission, said he was sending out about 350 absentee ballots that had not been mailed previously because those requesting them had not submitted copies of their IDs. In Madison, about 500 absentee ballots were being sent to voters Friday.

"It's business as usual for voters in this election, and I think that will contribute to very strong voter participation and a fair election," Albrecht said.

Both Milwaukee and Madison are continuing to look for poll workers, but the capital city now needs far fewer because the voter ID requirement will not be in place, said Madison's city clerk, Maribeth Witzel-Behl.

Dane County Clerk Scott McDonell, an opponent of the voter ID law, said some voters will be uncertain about what voting rules are in place because they have changed in recent weeks.

"I don't think we can escape voter confusion now. It's too late for that," he said at a news conference.

Michael Haas, the elections director for the state Government Accountability Board, issued a memo Friday to clerks about what steps to take now that the voter ID requirement has been blocked. The agency oversees elections.

"Emphasize to election inspectors that they must not request that an elector present a photo ID before a ballot is issued," he wrote.

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) said he was disappointed with the latest ruling but believed the ID requirement would eventually be instituted.

"Voter ID is common-sense legislation that is needed for honest and fair elections," he said.

The ID law was passed in 2011, but soon after blocked by a series of rulings in state and federal courts.

Last month, a three-judge panel of the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the voter ID law could go into place for the upcoming election while it considered the case. It followed that up with an order Monday that upheld the measure.

Opponents of voter ID asked to block those rulings, and the U.S. Supreme Court halted it Thursday. Its one-page ruling put the law on hold until the justices decide whether to review the voter ID law.

Separately, Posner wrote Friday he had asked for the full 10-member appeals court to review the panel's latest decision. The court split 5-5 on doing that, but Posner and his colleagues wrote a lengthy dissent saying Wisconsin's voter ID law should be invalidated.

"The movement in a number of states including Wisconsin to require voters to prove eligibility by presenting a photo of themselves when they try to vote has placed an undue burden on the right to vote, a right that the Supreme Court has found latent in the Constitution," Posner wrote for the five.

Posner was joined in his dissent by Diane P. Wood and Ann Claire Williams, both appointed by President Bill Clinton; Ilana Diamond Rovner, appointed by President George H.W. Bush; and David F. Hamilton, appointed by President Barack Obama.

Last month, the same five judges voted to take up Wisconsin's voter ID law, one vote shy of what they needed.

The five who declined to rehear the case were Joel M. Flaum, Frank H. Easterbrook and Michael S. Kanne, all of whom were appointed by Reagan; and Diane S. Sykes and John Daniel Tinder, who were both appointed by George W. Bush. Sykes is a former justice on the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

Those five judges did not write an opinion Friday explaining their views on the law. But the panel that has overseen the case — Easterbrook, Sykes and Tinder — earlier this week wrote that the voter ID law promotes confidence in election results.

"If the public thinks that photo ID makes elections cleaner, then people are more likely to vote or, if they stay home, to place more confidence in the outcomes," Easterbrook wrote for the panel.

The panel wrote Wisconsin's law was nearly identical to an Indiana law the U.S. Supreme Court upheld in 2008.

But Posner said there are major differences between Wisconsin and Indiana's laws, as well as between the evidence presented in the cases challenging the ID requirements. He noted Indiana accepts more types of IDs for voting than Wisconsin does, and that more people in Wisconsin lack the credentials that would be necessary to vote — 300,000 people, compared to 43,000 in Indiana at the time its law was being challenged.

The panel that ruled in the case, however, found it "questionable" that so many voters in Wisconsin lacked the type of IDs allowed for voting.

Friday's writing is significant because in 2007 Posner wrote the opinion for an appeals panel that upheld Indiana's law. The decision he authored was affirmed by the Supreme Court when it considered the case a year later.

He has been closely watched on the issue because last year he wrote in a book that Indiana's voter ID law is "now widely regarded as a means of voter suppression rather than fraud prevention."

Posner's latest opinion referred disparagingly to True the Vote, a national group that backs voter ID requirements. In Wisconsin, True the Vote worked with tea party groups in 2012 to establish an online database of everyone who signed petitions to recall Walker and other Republicans.

True the Vote has not been involved in the legal challenges to Wisconsin's voter ID law.

Catherine Engelbrecht, the group's president, issued a statement saying her organization did not deserve Posner's "unprompted scorn."

"Given the highly contentious atmosphere in the 7th Circuit surrounding this issue right now, it would seem predictable that rhetoric would decline into pettiness," her statement said.