Key Points

  • The Supreme Court granted New Hampshire's application and stayed the District of New Hampshire's Oct. 2 and Oct. 5, 2026, preliminary injunctions in case No. 1:26-cv-647.
  • The unsigned order held that the District Court did not point to anything justifying a departure from the rule that lower federal courts should ordinarily not alter election rules on the eve of an election, citing RNC v. DNC (2020) and People Not Politicians v. Onder (Sept. 25, 2026).
  • The stay lasts through the First Circuit appeal and any timely certiorari petition, ending automatically if certiorari is denied or upon the sending down of the Court's judgment if certiorari is granted.
  • Justice Jackson dissented, writing that an order that left the state election rule untouched and required only that the secretary of state conform his public statements to state law does not necessarily fall within Purcell and instead prevents voter confusion.

The Supreme Court on Thursday halted two federal court orders that had required New Hampshire's secretary of state to bring his public statements about the State's voter-registration and ballot-receipt rules into line with the text of state law. The Court relied on a principle that lower federal courts should ordinarily not alter election rules on the eve of an election.

In an unsigned order dated Oct. 22, 2026, the Court granted a stay application filed by David M. Scanlan, New Hampshire's secretary of state, and others. The Coalition for Open Democracy is the respondent. The application was first presented to Justice Jackson, who referred it to the full Court, and Justice Jackson is the only justice recorded as dissenting.

The order suspends two preliminary injunctions, which the U.S. District Court for the District of New Hampshire issued on Oct. 2 and Oct. 5, 2026, in case No. 1:26-cv-647. While the stay remains in place, the secretary of state is not bound by the District Court's directive to conform his public guidance to the amended statutes, and the orders stay frozen while the appeal proceeds in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.

The Court's reasoning ran two sentences. It opened by quoting its 2020 decision in Republican National Committee v. Democratic National Committee: "This Court has repeatedly emphasized that lower federal courts should ordinarily not alter the election rules on the eve of an election." It then held that "the District Court did not point to anything that would justify deviating from that principle," citing People Not Politicians v. Onder, a decision the Court issued on Sept. 25, 2026.

The majority's order does not describe the guidance at issue or the District Court's findings. Those details appear in Justice Jackson's dissent. She wrote that, in the District Court's view, "the plain text of the statute and all of the testimony submitted during three days of hearings—from both sides—demonstrated" that the secretary of state's public statements and guidance about the State's recently amended registration and ballot-receipt requirements "were, at best, misleading."

The dissent cited two provisions of New Hampshire law, Sections 659:13(I)(c) and 654:12(I)(d)(4) of the state's revised statutes. It also pointed to a concession in the District Court record. According to the passage Justice Jackson quoted, the Deputy Secretary of State did not see any factual reason "why a student ID could not be reasonable evidence of a prospective voter's identity under the safety valve included in New Hampshire's voter identification regime."

Justice Jackson's dissent focused on the origins of the doctrine the majority applied. The Purcell principle takes its name from the Court's 2006 decision in Purcell v. Gonzalez. Justice Jackson wrote that Purcell "involved a federal court order that had completely enjoined enforcement of a state statute requiring voters to provide proof of identity when attempting to vote."

In that case, she wrote, the Court told lower courts to consider whether an order enjoining an election rule might itself cause "voter confusion" or create "incentive[s] to remain away from the polls." She then turned to the doctrine's reach. "Importantly, this so-called 'Purcell principle' arose in a particular context, and this Court has yet to fully define its limits," Justice Jackson wrote.

In her view, the New Hampshire orders differed from the one in Purcell because they "left the state election rule untouched." Such an order, she wrote, "does not necessarily fall within the ambit of Purcell and its concern about federal courts 'changing the election rules' at the last minute."

Justice Jackson called the District Court's central determination "certainly not clearly erroneous." The District Court had concluded that correcting the secretary's statements was needed to keep certain citizens from being "unduly burdened in their exercise of the fundamental right to vote," she wrote.

The dissent described the result as "a targeted order." Justice Jackson wrote that it required "the relevant government official conform his public statements to the letter of state law rather than summarizing what the law required in a manner that could mislead voters and local election workers." The injunction, she wrote, "was reasonably designed to address alleged misinformation, not to change the law."

On that account, she argued, the District Court's relief served the same goals Purcell was meant to protect. "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," Justice Jackson wrote.

She closed by stating her reason for dissenting. "Even, and perhaps especially, when an election is looming," she wrote, 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 stay remains in effect until the First Circuit decides the appeal and, if a party timely files a petition for a writ of certiorari, until the Supreme Court acts on that petition. If the Court denies certiorari, the stay ends automatically. If the Court grants review, the stay ends when the Court sends down its judgment.