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A nearly unanimous Supreme Court has granted New Hampshire’s emergency request to block the use of student IDs for voting in the November midterm elections.

The case raised a recurring theme at the high court about the propriety of judges intervening on the eve of political contests, against the familiar backdrop of GOP-backed voting restrictions purporting to ensure election integrity.

On Thursday, the majority said that the district court judge who ruled against the state failed to justify deviating from the general principle that federal courts shouldn’t alter election rules on the eve of an election. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented, writing she “would not disturb a clearly justifiable federal-court order issued to ensure that the public receives accurate information about a State’s electoral processes.”

The Biden-appointed justice said she wasn’t as sure as the majority that the judge’s action falls under that general noninterference rule, known as the “Purcell principle.” She said the judge was trying to address alleged misinformation rather than change state law.

“When a federal court determines that material misrepresentations are being made about a State’s election rules, an injunction to prohibit that conduct does not contribute to public confusion, it prevents that very problem,” Jackson wrote in her solo dissent.

While New Hampshire’s federal representatives are Democrats, Republicans run the state government. Gov. Kelly Ayotte signed a bill into law this year that prohibits the use of student IDs for voting.

A New Hampshire-based nonprofit called Coalition for Open Democracy sued the state over the law, which the group said needlessly burdens young voters under the guise of trying to solve the “non-existent problem” of nonresident voter fraud.

In a ruling earlier this month, U.S. District Judge Joseph Laplante refused to block the law, called HB 323. But the George W. Bush appointee said related guidance from New Hampshire Secretary of State David Scanlan, a Republican, went too far. Laplante said Scanlan overstepped in barring election officials from considering student IDs even as evidence under a “safety-valve provision” that lets voters prove who they are if they don’t otherwise have a proper photograph.

“The State has offered no independent justification for that broader prohibition,” wrote Laplante, explaining that such justification is needed even for minimal burdens on voting rights. He blocked enforcement of Scanlan’s directive to the extent it “prohibits or discourages election officials from considering student IDs as evidence of voter identity,” and he ordered the secretary of state to issue revised guidance for the midterms.

Laplante declined to halt his ruling, as did an appellate panel over dissent from a Trump-appointed judge. State officials then turned to the justices in Washington, arguing that Laplante’s order risks late-breaking confusion. The Republican National Committee filed an amicus brief supporting the state.

Opposing the state’s emergency application, Open Democracy said granting the application would be the chaos-inducing move. The group noted that Scanlan had already quickly complied with the order to provide revised guidance, and that his website “has told voters since the October 2 Order that supervisors may consider a student ID along with other evidence.”

That guidance is now the status quo, Open Democracy observed. Therefore, it said, granting the state’s application would “reverse the rules for a second time in a month.”

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Today’s edition of quick hits.

* An intensifying outbreak: “The Ebola epidemic that began in the Democratic Republic of Congo earlier this year has achieved a grim new milestone, turning up in a third region of the African continent, the widest footprint of any Ebola outbreak to date. This week, health officials identified a new case in Abuja, Nigeria, more than 2,000 miles west of the outbreak’s epicenter in Central Africa. The news came the same day as the announcement of a ninth case of Ebola in the East African country of Kenya.”

* The latest in a series of key departures at the department: “Calley Means, a top aide to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., announced Thursday that he is resigning. … The Wall Street Journal, citing people familiar with the matter, reported Thursday that Means was unhappy about the White House dragging its feet on some of Kennedy’s policy ideas and blamed other administration officials for allowing special interests to have too much influence. The Journal was the first to report Means’ departure.”

* A prosecution worth watching: “Virginia state Sen. L. Louise Lucas, one of the state’s most powerful Democrats, was charged on Thursday in connection with what federal authorities alleged was a role leading a criminal enterprise that acquired and distributed large quantities of marijuana and laundered the proceeds.”

* This report probably won’t be the final word on the subject: “President Trump called Elon Musk on Wednesday and asked him to lift restrictions on a military-grade version of Starlink in Ukraine that the SpaceX chief had throttled, U.S. officials said. The system was working more normally Thursday, shortly after their conversation, U.S. and Ukrainian officials said. Some Ukrainian officials said the system wasn’t restored to full functionality but was working at higher speeds than under the cap.”

* The White House’s war on the free press is ongoing: “The White House this week launched new broadsides against the news media, blocking a reporter from serving in the pool covering the president and sending a letter threatening Politico over its coverage of White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles.”

* Another case worth watching: “Top Democrats and allied organizations filed a lawsuit on Wednesday against President Donald Trump and his administration over their attempts to stymie the midterm elections, including by removing voters from state rolls.”

* The White House won’t like this honor one bit: “The International Criminal Court and its embattled staff have won the European Union’s top human rights honor, the Sakharov Prize, an official said Thursday. The award came just days after the Trump administration announced sweeping new sanctions on the court, which is based in The Hague, Netherlands, as part of its campaign to dismantle the tribunal over investigations into the United States and its allies, including Israel.”

* A Washington Post investigation identified “at least 11” instances in which “government officials have discovered unauthorized users have gained access to Flock databases and searched them without permission, sometimes to track the locations of romantic partners.” The more common the abuses, the more intense the public backlash becomes.

See you tomorrow.

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