Supreme Court lets New Hampshire bar student IDs as backup voter identification for Nov. 3 election

The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday, Oct. 22, 2026, granted New Hampshire’s request to pause two preliminary injunctions issued Oct. 2 and Oct. 5 by the U.S. District Court for the District of New Hampshire in Coalition for Open Democracy v. Scanlan, No. 1:26-cv-647. The stay lasts while the state’s appeal is pending at the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and through any timely petition for certiorari. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented.¹

The unsigned order said lower federal courts should ordinarily not change election rules close to an election and that the district court “did not point to anything that would justify deviating from that principle.”² The court posted a revised version on Oct. 23.³

What the lower court ordered

A state law known as HB 323, signed by Gov. Kelly Ayotte on April 3 and in effect June 2, took student ID cards off the forms of photo identification that by themselves satisfy the ID requirement for getting a ballot.⁴ The statute now lists driver’s licenses, state-issued or nondriver ID cards, U.S. armed services ID cards and U.S. passports or passcards. A ballot clerk sends a voter who lacks one of those to the supervisor of the checklist, who decides whether the voter’s identity can be verified.⁵

U.S. District Judge Joseph N. Laplante declined to block HB 323. He did block an April 23 press release and related guidance from Secretary of State David M. Scanlan, which the court called the “April Directive,” to the extent it prohibits or discourages election officials and polling place workers from considering student IDs as evidence of identity under the law’s fallback provisions. He ordered the secretary to issue revised guidance saying officials “may consider them, along with other available evidence.”⁶ The Supreme Court’s stay puts that order on hold for the Nov. 3 general election.¹

The two sides

The state, represented by Attorney General John M. Formella’s office, argued that the order came “just 32 days before the general election,” after months in which the secretary’s office trained local officials and put out student voting guides, polling place posters and radio ads on the new rules. It said the district court’s reading of state law was wrong and that, because the public could misunderstand the order, “there is substantial risk that voters could show up at the polls with only their student IDs in-hand.”⁴ The Republican National Committee filed a friend-of-the-court brief in support of the state.¹⁷

The Coalition for Open Democracy, the nonprofit that brought the suit, told the court, “No statute is enjoined,” and said the injunction reached only a directive that went beyond the law. It said the secretary had already posted revised guidance and that a stay “would reverse the rules for a second time in a month.”⁸ In reply, the state said the secretary’s guidance is “plainly part of New Hampshire’s election rules.”⁹

Jackson wrote that the district court’s order “left the state election rule untouched” and was aimed at correcting public statements about what the law requires. She said she would not disturb an order “issued to ensure that the public receives accurate information about a State’s electoral processes.”²

Formella called the decision “an important victory for our efforts to defend those laws and prevent last-minute court orders from creating uncertainty for voters and election officials,” New Hampshire Public Radio reported. NHPR also reported that local election officials say few students show up to register or ask for a ballot carrying only a student ID.¹⁰ CBS News reported that the decision came less than two weeks before the election.⁷

What the records do not show

• No statement was found from the secretary of state’s office after the Oct. 22 order explaining what guidance election officials and voters should now follow.
• The order does not say how the other justices voted beyond Jackson’s dissent.²
• The 1st Circuit has not ruled on the state’s appeal, and the district court has not decided the case on its merits.¹
• The records do not show how many voters have used a student ID under the fallback provisions since Oct. 2.