A view of the US Supreme Court in Washington, DC, on October 14, 2026. (Photo by SAUL LOEB / AFP via Getty Images)
The U.S. Supreme Court issued an order Thursday that paves the way for New Hampshire to prohibit students from using student IDs to register to vote or obtain a ballot for the November election.
The backstory:
The state legislature passed House Bill 323 in April, which removed student IDs as a valid form of identification for students who wished to vote in the midterm election.
After the law went into effect, New Hampshire Secretary of State David Scanlan issued guidance to election officials confirming the change and numerous trainings were held, according to New Hampshire Attorney General John Formella.
But a lawsuit filed by the Coalition for Open Democracy challenged the law and asked the courts to block it.
Part of the argument centered on the Purcell principle, based on a 2006 Supreme Court case, that established that last-minute court orders that changed election laws risked causing voter confusion and possible disenfranchisement as well as disruption for local election officials and their ability to properly administer the election. The case ended with in early October with the U.S. District Court for the District of New Hampshire issuing an injunction blocking that change. The state’s Department of Justice asked the nation’s highest court to block the injunction "to avoid confusion among voters and election officials alike," Formella’s office said in a release.
The Supreme Court granted the stay, meaning that the state can reject student IDs as a valid form of identification.
What they're saying:
"New Hampshire has a responsibility to protect the integrity of its elections and ensure that election laws are applied as written," Formella said in a statement. "The Supreme Court’s decision is an important victory for our efforts to defend those laws and prevent last-minute court orders from creating uncertainty for voters and election officials. We will continue to defend New Hampshire’s election laws and the safeguards they provide."
Part of the arguments involved the legal principle established in the case of Purcell v. Gonzales in 2006, in which the court argued that courts should not change election rules during the period just prior to an election because of the confusion it could cause.
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson expressed her dissenting opinion with the court order, saying that the Purcell principle is meant to stop courts from rewriting election laws, but that in this case the lower court didn’t change the law; it kept the state statute intact and "only ordered the Secretary of State to fix misleading statements so they matched the actual written law." She also said ordering that state officials give accurate guidance reduces voter and poll-worker confusion rather than causing it.
She also argued that when a court acts to stop government officials from spreading inaccurate information about voting rules right before an election, higher courts shouldn’t step in to block that action.
In a statement, the counsel for the Coalition For Open Democracy called the high court’s order "wrong."
"The Court’s decision grants a stay which both the federal district court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit denied, blocking an injunction that has now been in place for almost three weeks, injecting confusion into the election—precisely what the Purcell principle is supposed to prevent—and authorizing an unconstitutional policy that will deprive young voters of their right to vote," the statement read. "We applaud Justice Jackson for her dissent, in which she stands for the Constitution, the right to vote, and a rational application of Purcell. We will continue to vigorously litigate this case in the defense of the fundamental right to vote of young voters across New Hampshire."
What's next:
The Supreme Court’s stay means that New Hampshire election officials can refuse to accept student IDs. However, the stay is in effect until the lawsuit against the law itself is settled.
The New Hampshire Department of Justice will continue to defend the election law in the future court proceedings, Formella said.
The Source: Information in this story came from the New Hampshire Department of Justice, the U.S. Supreme Court website, the Coalition for Open Democracy and Ballotpedia. This story was reported from Orlando.