The Radical Reading Room

The Supreme Court on October 22, 2026, put on hold two preliminary-injunction orders from the U.S. District Court for the District of New Hampshire in Scanlan v. Coalition for Open Democracy. The stay means the district court’s temporary relief is paused while the case proceeds at the First Circuit and, if sought, in a timely petition for certiorari. Justice Jackson noted her dissent. The Court did not decide whether New Hampshire’s voter-ID guidance is lawful.

The timing matters. The district court entered one order on October 2 and another on October 5, 2026, before the Supreme Court acted on the emergency application docketed October 15. The high court’s order preserves the status quo for now, but only in the narrow procedural sense: it keeps the preliminary injunctions from taking effect while appellate review continues.

That leaves the underlying dispute unresolved. The challengers have argued that the state’s election guidance improperly restricts the use of certain student identification cards at the polls. State officials, in turn, have defended the guidance as consistent with New Hampshire election law. The Supreme Court’s order does not resolve those competing claims, and it does not amount to approval of the policy.

In practical terms, the ruling is a temporary win for state election officials because it blocks the district court’s preliminary relief during the appeal. But the decision is not a merits ruling, and it does not establish wrongdoing by either side. The question of whether New Hampshire’s voter-ID guidance survives legal challenge remains for the lower courts to decide.