Supreme Court Lets New Hampshire Bar Student IDs in Midterms; Jackson Dissents

The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday granted an emergency request from New Hampshire, allowing the state to block student ID cards from being used in the upcoming midterm elections. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was the only justice to publicly dissent, though others may have dissented without being identified on the brief order. UPI reported that the Republican National Committee backed the state's request. The majority cited the longstanding principle that lower federal courts should ordinarily not change election rules on the eve of an election, and said the lower courts had not argued that this case warranted an exception. Jackson wrote that, even and perhaps especially when an election is near, she would not disturb a clearly justifiable federal-court order meant to ensure the public gets accurate information about a state's electoral processes. The dispute stems from a law signed in April and effective in June that removed student IDs from the forms of identification officials can accept when someone requests a ballot. A voting rights group sued.

Alternative / independent outlets had not reported this story at the time of writing, while left-leaning and right-leaning outlets had. The left-leaning item, from MS NOW, does not address the New Hampshire ruling in its available excerpt. Its headline says Hillary Clinton thinks the court should have 13 justices, and it says a once-fringe Democratic position has become mainstream and that the court is to blame. It names no student IDs, no Jackson and no dissent. Right-leaning Breitbart and Fox News both lead with Jackson's dissent and share nearly identical passages: the precedent against changing rules close to an election and her full quoted objection. Fox's headline says Jackson "again" broke with the court and that the justices sided with the GOP. Breitbart's says she broke with the court and adds that other justices may have dissented anonymously, citing Fox and UPI. Fox adds the law's April and June timeline and carries an unrelated item on California voter verification. The two sides therefore share no common account of the ruling itself.