WASHINGTON (AP) – The Supreme Court led the way Thursday in New Hampshire to completely ban the use of student ID cards to vote during the midterm elections.
The justices granted a Republican-backed emergency appeal and blocked the use of student ID cards as a secondary identification method. The Supreme Court cited a longstanding legal principle that judges should not change voting rules too close to Election Day.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was the only one to publicly express his disagreement.
New Hampshire passed a law this year stating that student ID cards would no longer be an expressly accepted form of identification for obtaining a ballot. The Secretary of State later issued guidance banning them as a secondary means of proving a voter’s identity.
A judge left the law in place but blocked the guidelines in early October, prompting an appeal to the Supreme Court. The Republican National Committee stepped in to support the state.
The decision comes less than two weeks before New Hampshire voters cast their ballots in a hotly contested race for the U.S. Senate.
New Hampshire State Rep. Donald McFarlane said he sponsored the bill to eliminate student ID cards for voting because colleges don’t have the same controls when issuing those cards as government agencies.
“Today’s decision by the Supreme Court is a victory for common sense,” he said in an email. “This allows HB 323 to work as intended: strengthening voter ID verification, enforcing a consistent standard, and maintaining public confidence in New Hampshire elections.”
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