Supreme Court lets New Hampshire bar student IDs for voting in November election

The Supreme Court on Thursday cleared New Hampshire to bar college students from using school-issued identification cards to vote in the Nov. 3 general election, siding with the state's Republican secretary of state over the lone dissent of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.

In an unsigned order in Scanlan v. Coalition for Open Democracy, the court put on hold a federal district judge's ruling that had allowed local election officials to weigh a student ID as supporting evidence of identity for voters who lack a driver's license or other state-approved photo ID. The stay, which remains in effect while New Hampshire's appeal moves through the courts, means no form of student ID can be used to establish identity at the polls or when requesting a ballot in less than two weeks.

What the order says

The brief order invoked what is known as the Purcell principle, a doctrine drawn from a 2006 ruling that counsels federal courts against changing election procedures close to an election because of the risk of voter confusion. The majority wrote that the district court "did not point to anything that would justify deviating from that principle," according to the order and dissent posted by the court.

Justice Jackson, the only member of the court to note a public dissent, argued the lower court had not actually altered New Hampshire's election rules. In her view, the district judge had merely blocked an administrative directive that went beyond what the legislature itself had enacted, and had not touched the underlying statute.

The district court's order was "reasonably designed to address alleged misinformation, not to change the law," Jackson wrote, adding that the case "does not necessarily fall within the ambit of Purcell."

How the dispute got here

The fight traces to House Bill 323, which New Hampshire's Republican-controlled legislature passed on a party-line vote and Gov. Kelly Ayotte signed on April 3. The law, which took effect June 2, removed student identification cards from the list of documents expressly accepted as photo ID for voting. Soon after, Secretary of State David Scanlan issued guidance instructing local election officials not to treat student IDs as acceptable evidence of identity even under a separate "safety-valve" provision that lets a voter without a qualifying photo ID establish their identity through other means.

The Coalition for Open Democracy, a nonprofit that organizes voter-registration drives at New Hampshire high schools, sued Scanlan and Attorney General John Formella, arguing the law and the directive together burdened the right to vote and were designed to discourage young voters. On Oct. 2, U.S. District Judge Joseph Laplante declined to block HB 323 itself but found the secretary of state's directive likely could not survive constitutional scrutiny, writing that the state "has identified no interest served by the April Directive beyond those already served by HB 323." His order would have let poll workers consider a student ID as one piece of evidence under the safety-valve provision. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit declined to pause that ruling, prompting Scanlan to seek emergency relief from the Supreme Court on Oct. 15.

Who is affected and who is watching

The practical effect falls on New Hampshire's college and university students, a sizable share of whom come from out of state and rely on a campus ID when they lack an in-state driver's license. The University of New Hampshire alone reported a double-digit increase in out-of-state enrollment this fall, according to New Hampshire Public Radio's reporting on the university's enrollment figures. Under the stay, students without a driver's license, passport or other state-approved photo ID must now rely on New Hampshire's separate process for voters who lack qualifying identification in order to vote on Nov. 3, rather than presenting a student ID as part of that process.

The ruling lands in the middle of New Hampshire's competitive open U.S. Senate race, in which Democratic Rep. Chris Pappas is running against Republican former Sen. John E. Sununu for the seat held by retiring Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, as well as other statewide contests on the Nov. 3 ballot. The Republican National Committee filed a brief backing Scanlan's request for a stay, underscoring how closely national party organizations are watching identification rules in a state where statewide races have historically been decided by narrow margins.

Reaction and what comes next

Formella, the state's attorney general, called the outcome "an important victory" for the state's authority to set its own election procedures without last-minute court intervention, according to CBS News's report on the ruling. Scanlan's office did not immediately say whether it would issue new guidance to local poll workers beyond the directive the courts had been reviewing.

The Coalition for Open Democracy had told the justices that granting the stay would reverse the rules governing the election for a second time in a month and invite the very confusion the Purcell principle is meant to prevent. The group has signaled, through earlier statements after its district court win described by New Hampshire Public Radio, that it intends to keep pursuing its broader constitutional challenge to HB 323 in the lower courts regardless of Thursday's outcome.

The Supreme Court's stay applies only while the underlying appeal proceeds before the 1st Circuit, which has not yet ruled on the merits of whether Scanlan's directive, or HB 323 itself, is constitutional. That means the student-ID question could return to the justices after the midterms, even as Thursday's order settles the rules for this election. For now, as detailed in SCOTUSblog's account of the order, New Hampshire voters who lack a driver's license, passport or other state-approved photo ID will not be able to rely on a student ID in any form when they go to the polls on Nov. 3.