By The Epoch Times | Created at 2026-10-07 15:56:53 | Updated at 2026-10-07 21:14:51
5 hours ago
Voters cast their ballots in the primary for midterm elections at Sanbornton Town Hall in Sanbornton, N.H., on Sept. 8, 2026. CJ Gunther/Getty Images
A New Hampshire law that bars using student identification to register to vote or check in to vote does not appear to be unconstitutional, a federal judge has ruled.
U.S. District Judge Joseph Laplante, based in New Hampshire, in an Oct. 2 order declined to impose a preliminary injunction that would have blocked the law as a legal case against it proceeds.
“The plaintiff has not demonstrated, at this preliminary stage, a likelihood of success in its challenge to the statute, now providing that a student ID is no longer, on its own, expressly valid identification to obtain a ballot,” Laplante said in the 51-page decision.
Before the law took effect, voters could use student identification cards issued by colleges, career schools, or public high schools.
The judge did, however, block a directive from the New Hampshire Secretary of State’s Office that told officials that student IDs could not be used as evidence to establish identification under a so-called safety-valve provision in existing state law.
That provision lists acceptable forms of identification and says voters can prove their identity with “any other evidence that reasonably establishes that it is more likely than not that the person is who they claim to be.”
The judge said that while the new law “only removed student IDs from the forms of identification that are expressly valid, the April Directive went further, barring election officials from considering student IDs even as evidence under the safety-valve provision that permits a voter without qualifying photo identification to establish identity by other means.”
Laplante said that state officials had offered “no independent justification for that broader prohibition,” while under Supreme Court precedent, a state must identify interests to justify even a minimal burden on the right to vote.
He enjoined officials from enforcing the directive to prohibit or discourage election officials from considering student IDs as evidence of voter identity.
Lawyers for the Coalition for Open Democracy issued a statement after the ruling.
“We are pleased that the court enjoined as unconstitutional any effort by New Hampshire to prohibit or discourage voting officials from considering student IDs as evidence of identification when registering and voting in New Hampshire elections,” they said, adding that they would continue urging the court to block the new law as well.
New Hampshire officials have appealed the ruling.
“The court’s interpretation defies common sense and defeats the clear legislative intent of [the new law, when interpreted in the context of the overall legislative scheme, that ‘only’ government-issued identification be used to vote,” Secretary of State David Scanlan said in a statement.
“The court’s interpretation further creates a significant risk of unequal treatment of voters across the state because supervisors in each town and ward across the state will have to decide on a case-by-case basis whether a particular student identification card ‘along with other available evidence’ reasonably proves the voter’s identity.”
Judicial alteration of election rules just one month before a general election risks confusing and disenfranchising voters, Scanlan said, announcing that his office would seek an emergency stay of the order.
