Supreme Court Student ID Ruling Hits NH College Voters

The Supreme Court student ID ruling dropped Thursday evening, and it hits college voters in New Hampshire right when early voting is heating up. The justices cleared the way for the state to fully ban student IDs at the polls for the midterm elections, according to the Associated Press.

It was an emergency order, not a final decision on the law itself. But with Election Day on November third, the practical effect is immediate: students in the Granite State will need a government-issued ID, full stop.

What the court actually did

The justices granted an emergency request from New Hampshire, which was backed by the Republican National Committee. Their brief, unsigned order paused a lower-court ruling that had allowed poll workers to consider a student ID as a backup way to confirm who someone is.

The reasoning leaned on a long-standing idea often called the Purcell principle. As the order put it, "lower federal courts should ordinarily not alter the election rules on the eve of an election," as SCOTUSblog reported. The order added that the district court "did not point to anything that would justify deviating from that principle," according to NBC News.

No vote count was released, which is normal for emergency orders. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was the only justice to publicly dissent. She argued the district judge had issued a targeted order meant to address alleged misinformation, not to rewrite the law.

How New Hampshire got here

The fight starts with HB 323, a law passed in April that took effect in June. It removed student IDs from the list of identification that election officials would accept when someone requests a ballot.

The Coalition for Open Democracy, a nonprofit that helps high schools run voter registration drives, sued. Secretary of State David Scanlan, a Republican, then issued guidance saying student IDs could not be used for any purpose at all, including as a backup.

A federal judge ordered that guidance revised, and an appeals court ruled last week that students could use school IDs on a case-by-case basis to help prove who they are, according to WMUR. The Supreme Court order wipes that out for this election.

Why Gen Z should care

If you are a college student, your school ID is probably the one card you carry everywhere. Plenty of young voters do not have a driver's license from the state where they study, or have not updated one. That is exactly the group this change squeezes.

The district judge had also found that the change already kept one student from voting and could affect others. Here is a practical takeaway: if you are voting in New Hampshire, bring a government-issued photo ID, and do not count on a student card as a fallback.

The Senate race behind the headline

The stakes are bigger than one state's rulebook. New Hampshire has a closely watched Senate race, with Republican former Sen. John E. Sununu facing Democratic Rep. Chris Pappas for the seat held by retiring Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, according to NBC News.

Control of the chamber could hinge on a handful of seats like this one. Young voters lean heavily Democratic in recent polling, so any rule that adds friction for students will get political attention. Supporters of the law say tighter ID rules protect election integrity.

What happens next

This is not the last word. The ruling is not final on the merits, and the underlying litigation continues, so the case could return to the Supreme Court after the midterms, The Hill noted.

For now, the rule stands for November, and the Supreme Court student ID ruling is the reason. The Coalition for Open Democracy said the decision was wrong, while state officials get the clarity they wanted before ballots are cast.

The bigger question is whether the Purcell principle keeps being used this way as the election gets closer. Every time a court says it is too late to change the rules, the rules that exist on that date are the ones that count. Check your state's ID requirements now, not on Election Day. For more, see our politics coverage.