Supreme Court Lets New Hampshire Block Student IDs at the Polls in November

The Supreme Court on Thursday cleared the way for New Hampshire to bar student IDs from being used to verify voters’ identities in the Nov. 3 election, handing a win to state Republicans and the Republican National Committee.

In a brief unsigned order, the justices paused two October rulings by a federal judge while the state appeals. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented; no vote count was announced.

The fight stems from House Bill 323, a law signed by Gov. Kelly Ayotte in April that removed student IDs from the list of identification voters may use to obtain a ballot, Democracy Docket reported.

Secretary of State David Scanlan, a Republican, then told officials not to consider student IDs at all, even under a “safety valve” letting voters without approved ID prove identity through other evidence.

A voting rights group, the Coalition for Open Democracy, sued, arguing the restriction burdened young voters. U.S. District Judge Joseph Laplante declined to block the law itself but ruled on Oct. 2 that Scanlan’s guidance went further than the statute.

Under Laplante’s order, poll workers could still weigh a student ID as one piece of evidence when deciding whether a person is who they claim to be, NBC News reported. The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declined to pause that ruling.

Scanlan then turned to the Supreme Court, arguing that the judge’s order injected uncertainty into voting procedures less than three weeks before the election and misread state law, USA Today reported.

“This Court has repeatedly emphasized that lower federal courts should ordinarily not alter the election rules on the eve of an election,” the order said. “Here, the District Court did not point to anything that would justify deviating from that principle.”

That reasoning rests on the so-called Purcell principle, which cautions courts against last-minute changes to election rules, Scripps News noted. The RNC had warned the lower-court order “threatens to disrupt identity verification” in the state’s elections.

Jackson argued the judge had corrected officials’ misreading of the rules rather than changing them. “I would not disturb a clearly justifiable federal-court order issued to ensure that the public receives accurate information about a State’s electoral processes,” she wrote.

The challengers had argued that state officials failed to identify security concerns unique to student IDs. The district judge also found the change had already kept at least one student from voting, according to USA Today.

New Hampshire voters will fill the seat of retiring Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, with Republican John E. Sununu facing Democratic Rep. Chris Pappas in a race that could help decide Senate control.

Scripps cited a recent CNN poll showing Democrats with a 31-point advantage among younger adults. The state’s appeal of the underlying ruling continues at the 1st Circuit.

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