Patrick Marley and Jason Stein

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

MADISON - In a sweeping decision shaking up how the November election will be conducted, a federal judge on Friday struck down aspects of Wisconsin's voter ID law, limits on early voting and prohibitions on allowing people to vote early at multiple sites.

The judge also turned back other election laws Republicans have put in place in recent years.

The order resets the rules for voting less than four months before the presidential election. A likely appeal could keep the laws in place.

The ruling comes a week after another federal judge ruled voters in Novembercould cast ballots without showing ID if they submitted statements at polling places saying they could not easily get a state-issued ID card. Attorney General Brad Schimel has already appealed that ruling.

The latest decision also deals with Wisconsin's 2011 voter ID law, but also addresses a broader set of election laws that have been modified in recent years, including ones limiting early voting and requiringvoters to establish residency 28 days before voting.

Both those measures are unconstitutional, U.S. District Judge James Peterson ruled in a 119-page ruling Friday.

Suing the state last year were voters who had difficulty getting IDs and two liberal groups, One Wisconsin Institute and Citizen Action of Wisconsin Education Fund. They argued the changes in voting laws Republicans in the state Capitol have adopted over the past five years were designed to violate the voting rights of those who tend to vote for Democrats.

Aides to Schimel defended the laws, arguing lawmakers have broad leeway to set voting rules as they see fit.

Peterson in Madison heard a two-week trial in May and issued his written decision Friday.

His ruling will not change any of the rules for the Aug. 9 primary. But — if kept in place — will reshape how the Nov. 8 general election is run. Further rulings by Peterson or higher courts could change that, however.

President Barack Obama appointed Peterson to the bench in 2014.

Those bringing the lawsuit had argued Peterson should invalidate a broad swath of laws passed by Republicans because they contended they were intentionally designed to make it harder for African-Americans, Latinos and young people to vote.

Their case also challenged the system the state has used to provide IDs to people who are qualified to vote but who have trouble getting them because they don't have birth certificates or have errors on them. GOP Gov. Scott Walker made changes to that system on the eve of the trial, but for years people without birth certificates have had to go through a lengthy process to try to get IDs, and even then many of them failed to get them even though they were considered eligible voters.

Those who have had the most difficulty getting IDs are overwhelmingly minorities.

Most people, however, have been able to get free IDs from the state with little trouble after a single visit to the state Division of Motor Vehicles.

The U.S. Supreme Court upheld Indiana's voter ID law in 2008 and since then such laws have flourished around the country. Many of those states, including Wisconsin, have passed laws that are more stringent than Indiana's, sparking a new wave of litigation.

Wisconsin's voter ID law was blocked for years by court orders, but revived last year after rulings by the Wisconsin Supreme Court and U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Even after those decisions, one of the cases remained alive as those opposed to the voter ID law argued some people needed another method of voting because they had great difficulty in getting IDs because they lacked birth certificates or had errors on them.

U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman embraced those arguments last week and ruled that in the Nov. 8 election voters who don't have IDs can cast ballots if they submit affidavits at the polls saying they can't easily get IDs.

A former Democratic state senator, Adelman was appointed to the federal benchby President Bill Clinton.

That decision has been appealed to the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago, which has shown it is equally divided when it comes to Wisconsin's voter ID law.

A panel of three judges from that court upheld the measure in September 2014. The full court then split 5-5 on whether the law should be overturned, leaving in place the panel's decision that upheld the law

Meanwhile, in another case, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans ruled Texas's voter ID law violated the Voting Rights Act because it has a discriminatory effect on blacks and Latinos.

The ruling on Texas' law does not affect the laws in Wisconsin, but it provides the latest sign the U.S. Supreme Court — short-handed since the February death of Justice Antonin Scalia — could eventually revisit voter ID laws.

In another closely watched case, a panel of three federal judges in Madison isexpected to decide soon whether the maps of congressional and legislative districts Republicans drew in 2011 violated the voting rights of Democrats.