The Supreme Court on Thursday allowed New Hampshire to fully bar student identification cards from being used to verify voters’ identities in the November 3 midterm election, staying a lower-court order that had preserved student IDs as backup evidence for voters without an accepted government photo ID.
The unsigned court order took effect less than two weeks before Election Day. The majority said lower federal courts ordinarily should not alter election rules on the eve of voting and found no reason to depart from that principle. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was the only justice to publicly dissent.
The decision does not resolve whether New Hampshire’s law or the secretary of state’s implementing directive is constitutional. It pauses the preliminary relief while the state’s appeal proceeds in the First U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and, potentially, returns to the Supreme Court. For this election, however, the practical rule is clear: a school-issued ID cannot automatically qualify a voter and cannot serve as the backup evidence contemplated by the lower court.
The dispute is broader than the statute
House Bill 323, signed by Republican Gov. Kelly Ayotte on April 3 and effective June 2, removed student IDs from the list of documents that automatically satisfy the state’s voter-identification requirement. The final law recognizes driver’s licenses, state identification cards, military IDs and U.S. passports or passcards. It deleted prior language accepting qualifying cards issued by New Hampshire high schools, colleges and universities.
The lawsuit also challenged an April directive from Secretary of State David Scanlan. That guidance told local election officials not to consider a student ID even under separate provisions allowing officials to examine other evidence when a voter lacks qualifying photo identification. The Coalition for Open Democracy argued that the directive extended beyond what lawmakers enacted and disproportionately burdened younger voters.
U.S. District Judge Joseph Laplante declined to block HB 323 itself but concluded that the broader directive was likely unlawful. His October 2 ruling required the state to let election officials consider student IDs as one piece of evidence under the safety valve. The First Circuit declined to suspend that limited protection, leading New Hampshire to seek emergency relief from the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court relied on election timing
The majority’s brief order emphasized the Purcell principle, named for a 2006 Supreme Court case warning that late federal-court changes can confuse voters and election administrators. New Hampshire’s stay request said officials had spent months training poll workers and publishing voter materials based on the April directive. The state argued that revising those instructions shortly before the election would create uncertainty and disrupt administration.
Jackson disputed that characterization. Her three-page dissent said Laplante had left the statute untouched and had instead ordered the secretary to stop describing state law in a way the district court found misleading. In her view, preventing inaccurate instructions would advance, not undermine, Purcell’s concern about voter confusion.
That disagreement matters beyond New Hampshire. Emergency election cases frequently reach the justices close to voting, when the court must weigh the risk of changing established procedures against the risk that a challenged rule will burden eligible voters. Thursday’s stay resolves that balance only for the interim; it is not a final judgment that the restriction is constitutional.
The number of affected voters remains uncertain
Evidence in the district court showed that about 97% of voting-eligible New Hampshire citizens possess identification accepted under HB 323. A plaintiff’s expert estimated that 6.56% of eligible citizens ages 18 to 24 — roughly 7,747 people — lack qualifying identification. But the judge stressed that the expert did not determine how many of those people have student IDs or how many previously relied on them, leaving the scale of the burden uncertain.
The lower-court record nevertheless documented a practical gap. Voters without qualifying ID can seek a state voter-identification card, but they must first obtain a voucher from a local clerk and then visit a Department of Motor Vehicles office. The permanent card is mailed rather than issued temporarily, making the process difficult to complete for someone attempting to register and vote on Election Day. The record described one 18-year-old who followed that route during the September primary but did not receive the card in time to vote.
Supporters of HB 323 say government-issued documents provide more consistent identity safeguards than school cards. State Rep. Donald McFarlane, the bill’s sponsor, told the Associated Press that colleges do not use the same controls as government agencies and said the ruling strengthens public confidence. The district court, however, noted that the state offered no evidence of a security concern unique to student IDs under the separate backup-evidence provision.
What New Hampshire voters face now
New Hampshire residents attending college may still establish voting domicile where they live while attending school. The change concerns proof of identity, not whether students are eligible residents. Voters should consult the secretary of state’s current ID guidance and, if needed, begin the process of securing an accepted government document before Election Day.
The underlying case, Coalition for Open Democracy v. Scanlan, continues. The First Circuit will consider whether the district court correctly distinguished the legislature’s removal of student IDs from the automatic list from Scanlan’s categorical exclusion of those cards as supporting evidence. The Supreme Court’s stay will end if it later denies review, or after judgment if it accepts the case.
For the November election, the ruling restores the state’s stricter interpretation at a moment when a closely contested U.S. Senate race could heighten scrutiny of every voting rule. What the order establishes is immediate procedure, not final constitutional law: student IDs are out for now, while the legality of both the statute and the broader directive remains unsettled.
