The Supreme Court issued a ruling on Thursday, letting New Hampshire prohibit voters from using student identification cards to prove their identities before casting ballots in the midterm elections.
The decision reverses a federal judge’s order blocking New Hampshire from enforcing a law that barred student IDs from being used for voter ID. The law took effect in April and remained in place for the state’s primary elections in September until the judge put a block on the measure earlier this month.
The high court reasoned that U.S. District Judge Joseph Laplante, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, had no place to block the law 32 days before the general election.
“‘This Court has repeatedly emphasized that lower federal courts should ordinarily not alter the election rules on the eve of an election,'” the Supreme Court said in recapping a key point from a 2020 case before making its conclusion in the current case. “Here, the District Court did not point to anything that would justify deviating from that principle.”
The three-page order was unsigned, with Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson being the sole dissenter.
“I respectfully dissent because — even, and perhaps especially, when an election is looming — I would not disturb a clearly justifiable federal-court order issued to ensure that the public receives accurate information about a State’s electoral processes,” Jackson wrote.
New Hampshire Secretary of State David Scanlan, a Republican, filed the emergency petition with the Supreme Court after an appeals court declined to pause Laplante’s ruling. Scanlan had the support of the Republican National Committee in the case.
The state law banning student IDs from voting was challenged by the Coalition for Open Democracy, which argued the measure unlawfully burdened the right to vote and discriminated against young voters.
NEW HAMPSHIRE URGES SUPREME COURT TO REINSTATE STUDENT ID VOTING BAN AHEAD OF ELECTION
New Hampshire offers in-person voting on Election Day and mail-in voting, but it does not offer in-person early voting.
The state’s top race is the Senate election between Rep. Chris Pappas (D-NH) and former New Hampshire Republican Sen. John Sununu. Both candidates are competing for the seat held by retiring Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH). The highly competitive race, which could determine which party controls the Senate, leans in favor of Pappas.
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[ H/T Washington Examiner ]
