Overview

With less than two weeks before New Hampshire’s November 3 election, the Supreme Court on October 22 stayed lower-court injunctions in a dispute over student IDs. The cards had been available as possible backup evidence of identity when voters lacked another document; that fallback is now paused while the case continues.

The stay reaches the lower court injunction

New Hampshire’s HB 323 removed student IDs from the list of photo identification expressly accepted at the polls. A separate part of the dispute concerned the secretary of state’s guidance, which barred election supervisors from weighing a student ID as backup evidence when a voter lacked another listed document.

On October 2 and 5, a federal district court blocked that guidance in a limited way while leaving HB 323 in place. On October 22, the Supreme Court stayed those preliminary injunctions. The AP described the immediate effect as ending student IDs’ backup role; the Court’s docket says the stay lasts through the First Circuit appeal and any timely petition for Supreme Court review.

Election guidance has two weeks to catch up

Election Day is November 3. Bloomberg Law reported that the secretary of state’s website still told voters that supervisors could consider student IDs under the earlier court order. That page reflected the district court ruling; the Supreme Court’s new stay changed the case’s status.

For voters, the question is no longer only whether a student card counts as an approved ID. They also need to know whether it can still support an exception. Local election officials have little time to get one consistent answer to polling places.

A temporary ruling shifts uncertainty to the polling place

This is not a final decision on whether HB 323 is lawful. The immediate order addresses whether the state’s guidance takes effect close to an election; the merits remain in the appellate process. The AP reported that Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was the only justice to publicly dissent.

The Court appears to be avoiding a last-minute change to election procedures, but the cost of updating information now falls on student voters and local officials. The reports do not quantify how many voters rely on student IDs as fallback evidence or say when the state website will reflect the new order.

Sources read for this article

The Associated Press, “Supreme Court allows New Hampshire to fully ban student IDs for voting in midterms,” published Oct. 22, 2026 at 23:13:55 UTC: https://apnews.com/article/42da13585a80dc52d92efa0dbe86b95e

Bloomberg Law, “Supreme Court Backs Republicans on New Hampshire Voter IDs (1),” published Oct. 22, 2026 at 10:22 PM UTC: https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-labor-report/supreme-court-backs-republicans-in-new-hampshire-voter-id-clash

U.S. Supreme Court docket, Scanlan v. Coalition for Open Democracy, No. 26A512, order dated Oct. 22, 2026; the docket does not list a time or time zone: https://www.supremecourt.gov/docket/docketfiles/html/public/26a512.html