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The Supreme Court this week issued an emergency order that will keep New Hampshire from letting college student photo IDs be used to obtain ballots in the upcoming midterm elections. The unsigned stay restores the state’s tighter rules and blocks a lower court’s limited relief that would have allowed some student IDs as a backup. That one-line move from the high court matters more than the pundits want to admit.
What the Court actually did
The Court granted the state’s request to pause the district court’s limited injunction. In plain terms: election officials in New Hampshire will follow the state law and guidance that removed student IDs from the list of acceptable photo identification for voting this November. The order invokes the familiar Purcell principle — lower federal courts should not change election rules on the eve of a vote — and was unanimous in staying the lower-court fix except for one dissent from Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. The district judge who issued the earlier, narrower relief was U.S. District Judge Joseph N. Laplante, and the challenge came from the Coalition for Open Democracy.
Why this matters: election integrity versus access
There’s a simple choice here that elected officials and citizens should stop sugarcoating: who decides voting rules, and how stable should they be as an election approaches? New Hampshire’s legislature changed the statute and the secretary of state, David M. Scanlan, followed up with guidance. Supporters of the change say it tightens clarity and bolsters election integrity. Opponents call it discriminatory toward young voters. Reasonable people can debate the balance between access and security, but last-minute court orders that flip rules back and forth are the real threat to orderly elections.
Practical effects and who pays the price
On the ground, this order will ripple through campus registrars, town clerks, and poll workers. Training materials and polling signage had already started to reflect the district court’s narrow fix; now election officials must revert to the state’s position. That means students who rely on student IDs will need to show up with a state-issued driver’s license, a state ID, or another accepted document — not a campus card. If anyone is surprised by that, they weren’t paying attention. Voters should come prepared; activists should stop treating preparation like an act of oppression.
Bottom line: clear rules, not chaos
The Supreme Court’s emergency move reinforces two things conservatives should cheer: respect for state lawmaking and a reluctance to let lower courts rewrite voting rules at the last minute. If you want voting to be secure and predictable, you back clear standards and predictable enforcement. If you want to avoid confusion at the polls, bring the right ID — and if you’re a campus activist who prefers rule-bending, bring better arguments than “my student card should be a get-out-of-preparedness-free pass.” The high court didn’t decide the final merits; it simply refused to uproot the state’s rules on the eve of an election. That’s common sense, not a partisan favor.
