Federal Court Deals Major Blow to Indiana GOP’s Student ID Ban 

A federal judge refused to dismiss a lawsuit challenging Indiana’s student ID voting ban — a major procedural win for young voters and pro-voting advocates who say the GOP-backed law was designed to suppress student voting.

In a decision issued Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Richard L. Young, appointed by former President Bill Clinton, denied Republicans’ motion to dismiss a case brought by students and voting rights groups against Indiana. The ruling means the challenge can proceed — and the court’s detailed reasoning suggests it’s extremely skeptical about the law’s constitutionality.

“By removing a form of identification used by ‘tens of thousands of young voters’ in Indiana, SB 10 makes voting more difficult for student voters than it was before the law was enacted,” Young wrote. “Plaintiffs have alleged facts that plausibly suggest that they are entitled to relief under the First, Fourteenth, and Twenty-Sixth Amendments.”

For months, voting rights advocates have argued that Senate Bill 10 (SB 10), passed by the GOP-controlled legislature earlier this year, intentionally targeted college students, many of whom lean Democratic, by eliminating their public university-issued IDs as acceptable identification for voting.

The court devoted significant attention to the practical hurdles students face in replacing their campus IDs with state-issued ones, emphasizing that students are less likely than other Indiana residents to have a driver’s license.

“Students seeking alternative forms of identification face special barriers at every step of the process,” Young noted. “Obtaining a state ID card from the Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles (‘BMV’) requires time, travel, and documentation that can be difficult to obtain and that students are significantly less likely to have than older voters.”

The court repeatedly expressed skepticism toward the state’s rationale for removing student IDs, including vague claims about preventing voter fraud and ensuring consistency among accepted IDs.

“The court struggles to understand how SB 10 addresses Indiana’s concern with unqualified voters voting. The court fails to see how — absent any indication of fraud unique to student IDs — general fraud concerns can likewise justify the elimination of a form of photo ID that has been accepted for 20 years and otherwise complies with the voter ID law’s neutral requirements,” Young added. “The Defendants’ interests in preventing fraud and consistency, though legitimate in the abstract, cannot justify the burden imposed by SB 10 — at least at this stage — because Plaintiffs have plausibly pleaded that SB 10 does not actually advance those interests.”

The decision lands amid a nationwide push by Republican lawmakers to curtail the use of student IDs for voting. In Idaho, a similar ban remains in place after being upheld by the state’s Supreme Court. New Hampshire, North Carolina and Wisconsin have seen GOP-led efforts to tighten ID rules for college voters, even as courts in Montana and other states have struck down comparable restrictions.

In Indiana, the Republican National Committee (RNC) defended the state’s law, filing an amicus brief in July urging the court to dismiss the case — a move that underscored the national party’s growing role in efforts to limit youth access to the ballot.

With the motion to dismiss denied, the case now heads into discovery. Tuesday’s ruling may signal that the court is prepared to take the Twenty-Sixth Amendment — which prohibits age-based discrimination in voting — seriously.

For now, SB 10 remains in effect, meaning students will still need another approved form of ID to vote in upcoming local elections.

The Elias Law Group (ELG) represents the plaintiffs in the case. ELG Firm Chair Marc Elias is the founder of Democracy Docket.