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A federal judge this week blocked Indiana from implementing a legislation that bars college-issued student identification playing cards from getting used for voting, ruling that the measure probably violates the constitutional rights of scholars and younger voters.
U.S. District Judge Richard Young granted a preliminary injunction on Tuesday in opposition to Senate Bill 10, a 2025 legislation that eliminated student IDs from Indiana’s listing of acceptable voter identification although such playing cards had been accepted for practically 20 years in the event that they included a voter’s title, {photograph}, expiration date and had been issued by the state or federal authorities.
“Plaintiffs have shown that they are likely to succeed on their claim that SB 10 imposes unconstitutional burdens on students and young voters in violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments,” Young, appointed by former President Bill Clinton, wrote in a 34-page order. “They have also established irreparable harm and satisfied the remaining requirements for a preliminary injunction.”
Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita’s workplace mentioned Wednesday it intends to attraction, arguing that the state’s voter ID legislation shouldn’t be weakened by court-ordered exceptions.
A volunteer picks up a “Require Voter ID” signal on the press convention on the Riverside County Registrar of Voters on Monday, March 2, 2026, as GOP lawmakers collect in help of inserting a voter ID measure on the November poll. (Anjali Sharif-Paul/MediaNews Group/The Sun by way of Getty Images)
“Indiana’s voter ID law is critical to election security and integrity,” the workplace told the Indiana Capital Chronicle in an announcement. “Courts shouldn’t be watering the law down by doling out special exemptions to some students and faculty. We’ll keep fighting to uphold commonsense election rules.”
Notably, out of state school college students could be registered in one other state, maybe a nexus for the state’s requiring a state or federal-issued ID.
Still, Young concluded that rejecting student IDs for voters “is probably unconstitutional.”
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“While it’s true that an injunction would override a democratically adopted law, Indiana has no valid interest in enforcing ‘a statute that is probably unconstitutional,'” Young wrote.
The ruling is a setback for Republican state lawmakers who permitted SB 10 final 12 months after arguing that student IDs weren’t issued with the identical rigor as Indiana driver’s licenses and state identification playing cards. Young discovered the state’s place undercut by the truth that Indiana nonetheless permits different non-driver types of identification — together with army, Veterans Administration and tribal IDs — lots of which, he wrote, are “less uniform than student IDs.”
“By eliminating student IDs as an acceptable form of identification, Defendants selectively excluded a form of identification that otherwise complies with the neutral criteria established by Indiana’s voter ID law and that has been accepted as a form of voter identification for nearly two decades,” Young wrote.
The judge mentioned he didn’t have to resolve, at this stage, a separate declare that the legislation deliberately discriminates on the idea of age in violation of the Twenty-Sixth Amendment.
The lawsuit was filed in May 2025 by Count US IN, Women4Change Indiana and Indiana University student Josh Montagne, who had used his IU-issued student ID to vote thrice however mentioned he lacked one other type of qualifying identification after the legislation took impact.
Young’s order described student IDs as a long-standing, broadly used instrument for voting on Indiana campuses. The opinion cited proof that just about 200,000 college students attend Indiana public universities whose IDs beforehand certified beneath the voter ID legislation, and famous a Monroe County election supervisor’s estimate that about two-thirds of voters at an on-campus Indiana University polling place used student IDs within the 2024 common election.
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Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, spoke throughout a information convention in regards to the SAVE America Act on the U.S. Capitol on March 19, 2026, in Washington, D.C. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
The judge estimated that the precise variety of college students affected by the ban was probably about 40,000, although he famous the plaintiffs’ professional had produced greater estimates. He mentioned the report confirmed the legislation falls hardest on school college students and youthful voters as a result of they’re much less probably than the final voters to own Indiana driver’s licenses or state IDs and sometimes face added hurdles in getting various documentation.
Young rejected the state’s argument that the public interest in election integrity justified the change, writing that Indiana had produced no proof that student IDs had been utilized in voter fraud or that that they had precipitated significant issues for election administration.
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“To eliminate the ID that students and young voters are far more likely to rely on, Defendants must better document the unique problems student IDs raise,” Young wrote. “On this record, SB 10 looks more like a solution in search of a problem.”
The courtroom additionally concluded that blocking the legislation weeks earlier than Indiana’s May 4 major wouldn’t create the sort of disruption federal courts are warned to keep away from near an election. Young mentioned the injunction would primarily restore a follow Indiana had adopted for years and would require solely minor updates to election supplies and coaching.
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Because the case is on the preliminary injunction stage, the ruling doesn’t completely strike down the legislation. But it means student IDs that in any other case fulfill Indiana’s voter ID necessities can be utilized within the upcoming elections whereas the lawsuit strikes ahead.
