Remember that Ari Berman article in the Nation that I blogged about yesterday? About Wisconsin’s obstructionism in voter registration? Well no biggy, it merely prompted a judge to order an investigation, that’s all.

The state of Wisconsin must investigate a report that Division of Motor Vehicles employees gave false information to people who applied for IDs to vote, a federal judge ordered Friday.

Judge James Peterson’s order followed a report this week by The Nation that cast doubt on whether Gov. Scott Walker’s administration is following a judge’s instructions in a court challenge to the state’s voter ID law.

The Nation report featured recordings of exchanges with DMV employees that appear to thwart efforts by a homeless man to obtain an ID to vote in the November election.

Peterson, who is presiding over one of two pending legal challenges to Wisconsin’s voter ID law, ruled in July that the state must promptly provide voter ID credentials, valid in the November election, to people who request them — even if they lack some of the underlying documents needed to obtain an ID.

In his order Friday, Peterson said recent reports by The Nation and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel raise the question of whether the DMV is following his instructions.

“These reports, if true, demonstrate that the state is not in compliance with this court’s injunction order” from July, Peterson wrote.