[JURIST] The US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit [official website] on Wednesday upheld [opinion, PDF; ACLU press release] an injunction granted by a federal judge earlier this month ordering Michigan voting officials to reinstate on voter rolls the names of newly-registered voters whose voter registration cards were returned to the post office as undeliverable. The ACLU of Michigan [advocacy website] had challenged [complaint, PDF] the new Michigan state law, which permitted nullification of such voter registrations, on the grounds that it violated the 1993 National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) [official backgrounder], which sets forth conditions that must be met before an individual can be removed from voting rolls. In a 2-1 opinion, the Sixth Circuit agreed, holding:

[T]here has never been a determination [here] that the [removed] voters are ineligible....[T]he preliminary injunction is necessary to protect the individual voters of Michigan affected by the undeliverable-voter-ID-card practice....[It] ensures that each individual who has properly registered to vote but was removed due to an error that is out of his or her control will be able to case a ballot on election day.