Supreme Court lets New Hampshire bar student IDs at the polls for the November election
The order is one paragraph plus Justice Jackson's short dissent; NBC explains what the 'safety valve' fight was about.
On October 22 the Supreme Court granted New Hampshire Secretary of State David Scanlan's emergency request and paused two October orders by U.S. District Judge Joseph Laplante. A state law enacted in April removed student IDs from the forms of identification accepted when someone requests a ballot. Laplante left that law in place, but blocked Scanlan's guidance that student IDs could not be used for any purpose, including under a "safety valve" that lets officials weigh other evidence of identity. With the stay, NBC reports, student IDs cannot be used even as backup evidence in the Nov. 3 election.
The unsigned order cited precedent that lower courts "should ordinarily not alter the election rules on the eve of an election." Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented alone, writing that the injunction targeted misleading official guidance rather than changing the law. The Republican National Committee backed the state; the challenge was brought by the Coalition for Open Democracy. New Hampshire has an open U.S. Senate seat on the ballot.
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Purcell principle
After exploring Scanlan v. Coalition for Open Democracy, No. 26A512 (order granting stay, Oct. 22, 2026), the doctrine the Court relied on is the Purcell principle.
Explains the doctrine that courts should not change election rules too close to an election because of the risk of confusion, named after the 2006 emergency-docket case Purcell v. Gonzalez.
Wikipedia · Wade · 5 min
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