The US Supreme Court has allowed the state of New Hampshire to ban the use of student ID cards as an identification document for voting in the midterm elections scheduled for November 3. This was reported by the Associated Press, quoted by BTA.
The judges granted an emergency request supported by the Republican Party and blocked the possibility of student ID cards being used as a backup way to verify the identity of voters. In its reasoning, the court cited the long-standing legal principle that election rules should not be changed immediately before Election Day.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was the only member of the Supreme Court to publicly dissent from the decision.
Earlier this year, New Hampshire passed a law that made student ID cards no longer an explicitly recognized form of identification for receiving a ballot. The state's secretary of state subsequently issued guidelines prohibiting their use as a backup form of voter identification.
In early October, an appeals court blocked those guidelines, leading to an appeal to the Supreme Court. The Republican National Committee joined the state in supporting the ban.
The ruling came less than two weeks before New Hampshire votes in a closely contested U.S. Senate race.
State Rep. Donald McFarlane, who introduced the bill to eliminate student ID cards as a ballot measure, said higher education institutions do not have the same oversight mechanisms in place when issuing ID cards as state institutions.
“Today's Supreme Court decision is a victory for common sense,“ McFarlane said in an email.