I can’t say I’m surprised by this decision. Regardless of what anyone says, the decision to require photo ID for voters is purely political. Ditto the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in this matter.

As someone who has a better-than-average knowledge and understanding of election law, I have to tell you that photo ID requirements are solutions in search of problems.

In PA, we all have to sign a poll book or voter’s certificate before we actually cast our ballots. Yup, it is kind of hard to impersonate somebody if you can’t forge their signature.

If legislators were truly concerned about voter fraud, they would be doing more to tighten up voting by absentee and overseas ballot. They would be concerned with ensuring that there are an adequate number of voting machines in all precincts, regardless of how rich or poor. They would be concerned about the integrity of voting machines.

The Supreme Court upheld Indiana’s voter-identification law on Monday, declaring that a requirement to produce photo identification is not unconstitutional and that the state has a “valid interest” in improving election procedures as well as deterring fraud.

In a 6-to-3 ruling in one of the most awaited election-law cases in years, the court rejected arguments that Indiana’s law imposes unjustified burdens on people who are old, poor or members of minority groups and less likely to have driver’s licenses or other acceptable forms of identification. Because Indiana’s law is considered the strictest in the country, similar laws in the other 20 or so states that have photo-identification rules would appear to have a good chance of surviving scrutiny.

The ruling, coming just eight days before the Indiana primary and at the height of a presidential election campaign, upheld rulings by a Federal District Court and the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, which had thrown out challenges to the 2005 law.

Justice John Paul Stevens, who announced the judgment of the court and wrote an opinion in which Chief John G. Roberts Jr. and Anthony M. Kennedy joined, alluded to — and brushed aside — complaints that the law benefits Republicans and works against Democrats, whose ranks are more likely to include poor people or those in minority groups.

The justifications for the law “should not be disregarded simply because partisan interests may have provided one motivation for the votes of individual legislators,” Justice Stevens wrote.

Justice Stevens and the two court members who joined him found that the Democrats and civil rights groups who attacked the law, seeking a declaration that it was unconstitutional on its face, had failed to meet the heavy burden required for such a “facial challenge” to prevail.

Perhaps, they suggested, the outcome could be different in another voter-rights case, one in which a plaintiff could show that his or her rights had been violated. That was the approach suggested by the Bush administration, whose solicitor general, Paul D. Clement, urged the court to wait for a lawsuit brought by someone was actually barred by the statute from casting a ballot.

Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. concurred in the judgment of the court, but went further in rejecting the plaintiffs’ challenge. In an opinion by Justice Scalia, the three justices said, “The law should be upheld because its overall burden is minimal and justified.”

Indiana’s law allows voters who lack photo identification to cast a provisional ballot, then appear at their county courthouse within 10 days to show identification. Chief Justice Roberts, who grew up in Indiana, said during the argument of the case in January that such requirements are not onerous. The law also makes provisions for people in nursing homes.

Justices David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer dissented. Justice Souter, in an opinion joined by Justice Ginsburg, said the Indiana law, which calls for a government-issued photo identification, like a driver’s license or passport, “threatens to impose nontrivial burdens on the voting rights of tens of thousands of the state’s citizens.”