The underlying dispute centers on Senate Bill 10, which Indiana enacted in April 2025. For roughly twenty years before that, the state had accepted student IDs from state-run universities as valid proof of identification for in-person voting, provided the IDs met statutory requirements. Senate Bill 10 eliminated that option, specifying that proof of identification for voting no longer includes a document issued by an educational institution. Two voting-rights nonprofits and a current Indiana University Bloomington student sued state and local election officials in May 2025, arguing the law unconstitutionally burdens young voters and intentionally discriminates against them in violation of the Twenty-Sixth Amendment.
Early voting in Indiana's primary began April 7, 2026, with Senate Bill 10 in effect and no ruling yet on the plaintiffs' preliminary-injunction motion. On April 14 — a week into voting — the Southern District of Indiana granted the injunction and barred enforcement of the law, including during the ongoing election. Indiana immediately sought an emergency stay from the Seventh Circuit.
A per curiam panel of Chief Judge Brennan and Circuit Judges Scudder and Kolar granted the stay on April 20. The court grounded its decision in the Purcell principle, citing the Supreme Court's repeated instruction that "lower federal courts should ordinarily not alter the election rules on the eve of an election." Republican Nat'l Comm. v. Democratic Nat'l Comm., 589 U.S. 423, 424 (2020). The panel also drew on Justice Kavanaugh's concurrence in Merrill v. Milligan for the observation that late judicial tinkering with election laws carries particular risk when a federal court swoops in and redoes a state's election laws in the period close to an election.
The court described the disruption risk as very serious, noting that the district court's order would alter who can cast a ballot seven days after voting had already begun. While the panel stopped short of saying an injunction can never issue during an ongoing election, it characterized this particular midstream relief on a matter of voter eligibility as a clear violation of Purcell. The court added that its federalism-related concerns were dispositive regardless of whether Purcell displaces the traditional stay factors entirely or operates as an election-specific refinement of them.
The Seventh Circuit noted that the student plaintiff has standing to seek to cast a valid ballot using his school ID, and that plaintiff organization Women4Change Indiana appears to have associational standing. The court bypassed the usual requirement of first seeking a stay in the district court, agreeing with Indiana that doing so would be impracticable given that early voting was already underway and the May 5 primary date was fast approaching. A separate briefing schedule on the merits of Indiana's appeal will follow.