Supreme Court misuses Purcell to block New Hampshire student IDs

By Adele Rutherford · Reporting from Atlanta · October 23, 2026

The Supreme Court blocked the use of student IDs as backup identification in New Hampshire, prioritizing administrative convenience over the legal right to vote.

The Supreme Court is wrong. In an unsigned order issued on October 22, 2026, and reported by NBC News and CBS News, the Court granted an emergency request from the state of New Hampshire to block the use of student IDs for the November 3 midterm elections. The Court did not rule on the constitutionality of the law. Instead, it used a procedural rule-of-thumb to shield an administrative error. By doing so, the Court prioritized the comfort of election officials over the statutory rights of voters.

The gap between the statute and the manual

To understand the error, one must read the record. In April 2026, Governor Kelly Ayotte signed House Bill 323, as detailed in reports by the New Hampshire Bulletin. This law removed student IDs from the list of identification that election officials expressly accept when a person requests a ballot. This was a legislative choice. The law does not, however, ban student IDs entirely. It contains a safety-valve provision. This provision allows the use of any other evidence that reasonably establishes that it is more likely than not that the person is who they claim to be.

The conflict began when Secretary of State David Scanlan issued guidance to local officials. Scanlan, a Republican, stated that student IDs could not be used for any purpose when people seek ballots. This guidance went beyond the law. It turned a removal from the "expressly accepted" list into a total ban.

U.S. District Judge Joseph Laplante saw this distinction. On October 2, Judge Laplante left House Bill 323 in place but blocked Scanlan's guidance. He ruled that the Secretary of State exceeded the law. Judge Laplante ordered revised guidance to clarify that officials may still consider student IDs as backup evidence under the safety-valve provision. He noted that the state offered no independent justification for the broader prohibition.

The Coalition for Open Democracy challenged the law using the Anderson-Burdick framework. This is a balancing test used to determine if the state's reasons for a law justify the burden imposed on voting. While the Coalition argued the law was an unconstitutional burden, they were fighting a battle on the wrong front. They focused on the broad constitutionality of the statute when the immediate victory was a simple matter of statutory interpretation. Judge Laplante had already given them that victory.

The selective application of the Purcell principle

The state and the Republican National Committee appealed to the Supreme Court. They invoked the Purcell principle. This is the doctrine that courts should not change election rules too close to an election because of the risk of causing confusion. The mechanism is the same as in Purcell v. Gonzalez. Federal courts are prohibited from altering election rules shortly before an election to avoid causing voter confusion.

The Supreme Court accepted this argument. The unsigned order stated that the District Court did not point to anything that would justify deviating from that principle. The Court essentially decided that correcting a misrepresentation of the law is the same as changing the law.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was the sole dissenter, as noted by MS NOW. She wrote that she would not disturb a justifiable order issued to ensure the public receives accurate information. She argued that when a federal court prevents material misrepresentations about election rules, the injunction prevents confusion rather than contributing to it.

Justice Jackson is correct. The Purcell principle is meant to prevent the "flip-flopping" of rules that leaves voters unsure of how to cast a ballot. It is not meant to protect a Secretary of State who misreads his own statute. When a court orders an official to follow the law as written, it is not changing the rules. It is enforcing them. The Court's decision to treat a correction as a "change" allows administrative overreach to stand simply because the calendar is full.

The cost of a government-issued ID

The practical result of this ruling is a burden on the youngest voters in New Hampshire. The state argues that student IDs are less secure because they lack ultraviolet markings and holograms. This is a weak holding. According to the New Hampshire Bulletin, student IDs are accepted as proof of identification to obtain a non-driver's ID from the DMV. If the ID is secure enough for the DMV, it is secure enough for the ballot box.

The alternative for students is a DMV non-driver's ID. This ID costs $20. For a college student, that is a tangible cost. Furthermore, DMV offices are located more than 30 minutes from campuses such as Dartmouth College and the University of New Hampshire in Durham.

This pattern is not new. New Hampshire has a history of this friction. The state is now one of 11 states that do not allow student IDs to prove identity. The state's interest in "integrity" is often used as a proxy for narrowing the electorate.

The Court has previously upheld photo ID requirements, as it did in Crawford v. Marion County Election Board (2008). But Crawford dealt with a general requirement. This case dealt with a specific exclusion. By blocking the safety-valve provision, the Court has ensured that some voters will be turned away not because the law forbids them, but because the manual told the poll worker to ignore the law.

The Supreme Court has traded the legitimacy of the process for the convenience of the bureaucracy. By invoking Purcell to protect a mistake, the Court has signaled that administrative stability is more important than statutory accuracy. This ruling will likely serve as a roadmap for other courts, including the Seventh Circuit in its current Indiana litigation, to prioritize the "eve of the election" excuse over the actual text of the law. The result is a system where the rules are not what is written in the books, but whatever the Secretary of State puts in the manual.

Supreme Court misuses Purcell to block New Hampshire student IDs

The gap between the statute and the manual

The selective application of the Purcell principle

The cost of a government-issued ID

Sources