The US Supreme Court cleared the way on Thursday for New Hampshire to fully ban the use of student IDs for voting during the midterm elections, granting a Republican-backed emergency appeal and blocking the use of student IDs as a backup method of identification.
The justices cited a longstanding legal principle that judges should not change voting rules too close to Election Day. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was the only justice to publicly dissent, according to the Associated Press.
How the dispute reached the court
New Hampshire passed a law this year, HB 323, saying student IDs would no longer be an expressly accepted form of identification for obtaining a ballot. The secretary of state then issued guidance barring them as a backup way to prove a voter’s identity.
A judge left the law in place but blocked the guidance in early October, prompting the appeal to the Supreme Court. The Republican National Committee weighed in to support the state, according to the Associated Press.
What happens next
The Supreme Court’s unsigned, one-paragraph opinion said the district court had not pointed to anything that would justify departing from the principle against late election-rule changes, known as the Purcell principle. Jackson wrote in dissent that the principle did not apply where a court was correcting misleading information about election rules.
The decision comes less than two weeks before New Hampshire voters cast ballots in a closely contested US Senate race, as Democratic Representative Chris Pappas faces former Republican Senator John Sununu to succeed the retiring Senator Jeanne Shaheen. It is not a final ruling in the litigation, and the case could return to the Supreme Court after the midterms.
Student voters are a significant bloc in New Hampshire, home to several colleges and universities, and the ID question has therefore become a recurring flashpoint in the state’s elections. State officials argue that consistent government-issued identification protects confidence in the result, while voting-rights advocates argue that students who live and study in the state should not face extra hurdles. The Supreme Court’s order settles the question for this election, but the underlying legal fight over HB 323 is far from over.
