State election officials decided Wednesday to allow technical college students to use their school IDs at the polls, saying they made a mistake two months ago by ruling that such IDs didn't qualify as photo identification.

The Government Accountability Board's surprise move, coupled with another decision Wednesday to permit colleges to affix two-year stickers to ID cards, immediately touched off a firestorm. Republican lawmakers say the board has overstepped its bounds and weakened the state's new voter ID law.

Sen. Leah Vukmir, R-Wauwatosa, co-chairwoman of the Legislature's rules committee, quickly scheduled a hearing for Tuesday to order the board to put its policies into rule format, which the panel could then suspend.

"We gave them the benefit of the doubt...but it's clear that they had their intentions set and they chose to ignore the very clear direction the committee gave them," Vukmir said.

GAB spokesman Reid Magney said board members felt they were interpreting the law as written.

"The board understood this was a possible consequence of its actions," Magney said.

Wisconsin's new voter identification law requires voters to show photo IDs at the polls beginning with February's elections. Driver's licenses, state identification cards and college and university IDs all qualify under the law.