A federal judge on Tuesday granted a preliminary injunction blocking Indiana from enforcing its new law barring the use of student identification cards at the polls, marking a significant legal setback for Indiana Secretary of State Diego Morales and state election officials.
In a 34-page order issued by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana, Judge Richard L. Young found that the plaintiffs — Count US IN, Women4Change Indiana, and Indiana University student Josh Montagne — demonstrated a reasonable likelihood of success on their claim that Senate Bill 10 unconstitutionally burdens the right to vote under the First and Fourteenth Amendments.
The court then issued a separate injunction order prohibiting state and local election officials from enforcing the portion of the law that bars student IDs from being used as proof of identification.
“Defendants … are prohibited from enforcing SB 10, to the extent that it prohibits voters from using documents issued by educational institutions as proof of identification, until this case has been finally resolved,” the court wrote.
The ruling restores, at least for now, a voting practice that had been in place in Indiana for nearly two decades.
Before the General Assembly enacted SB 10 in 2025, student identification cards issued by Indiana’s public universities had long been accepted so long as they displayed the voter’s name, photograph, expiration date, and were issued by the state or federal government. The court noted that hundreds of thousands of students had relied on those IDs to vote over the years.
Judge Young’s order places particular emphasis on the law’s practical effect on younger voters, especially college students and out-of-state students attending Indiana schools.
The court found that students are significantly less likely than the general population to possess Indiana driver’s licenses or state-issued identification cards, making student IDs a critical means of voting access for many eligible voters.
The decision could impact between 40,000 and 90,000 student voters statewide, many of whom may now once again use qualifying student IDs to cast ballots in the 2026 elections.
The order also undercut one of the central rationales advanced by supporters of SB 10 — election integrity.
According to the ruling, the record before the court contained no evidence that student IDs had been used to commit voter fraud or other election-related misconduct.
The case now moves forward on the merits, but the immediate effect is clear: qualifying student IDs may continue to be used at Indiana polling locations while the litigation proceeds.
The injunction arrives as Indiana gears up for the 2026 election cycle and is likely to intensify legal and political scrutiny surrounding the state’s election laws and the leadership of Secretary of State Morales.
An appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit is widely expected.
