In a 6-3 ruling today, the Supreme Court upheld Indiana’s strict photo ID requirement, allowing states to require voters to present photo identification before casting ballots.

The law was a Republican-backed measure that advocates say combats voter fraud while Democrats and civil rights groups say would disenfranchise poor, older and minority voters.

The application of the statute to the vast majority of Indiana voters is amply justified by the valid interest in protecting ‘the integrity and reliability of the electoral process,” Justice John Paul Stevens said in an opinion joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Anthony Kennedy.

The law has been in effect since its passage in 2005 and will be used in next week’s presidential primary.

The court ruled that the requirements enacted by Indiana’s legislature were not enough of a burden to invoke constitutional protections.

Three conservative justices — Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and also agreed with the outcome, but wrote separately. Three liberal justices — David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer — dissented.

Democrats say the laws disenfranchise people least likely to have driver’s licenses or passports and who are most likely to vote Democratic.

Stevens noted that it was “fair” to infer that “partisan considerations may have played a significant role” in Indiana’s decision to pass the law.

But if a nondiscriminatory law is supported by valid neutral justifications, those justifications should not be disregarded simply because partisan interests may have provided one motivation for the votes of individual legislators,” Stevens wrote.

Concern that the Democratic Party is dividing, Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean recently spoke out again about this election. Dean reiterated his call two weeks ago to end the Democratic primary contest in June.

Dean is focusing on winning the general election, and in order to fulfill that goal, measures must be taken soon.

We really can’t have a divided convention,” Dean said. “If we do it’s going to be very hard to heal the party afterwards. So we’ll know who the nominee is and that’ll give us an extra 2 1/2 months to get our party together, heal the wounds of having a very closely divided race and take on Senator McCain.”

On Monday, he made clear that either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama have to drop out of the race to the White House in June after the primaries and before the convention.

He didn’t specify which candidate he wants to see drop out.

We want the voters to have their say,” Dean said. “That’s over on June 3.”

Dean said that both candidates will know it if it is “time for them to go”.

This is not about Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama,” Dean said. “This is about our country. It’s about a better course for our country. We’ve got to move on and win the presidency.”

So far, Obama is in the lead with 1,714 pledged delegates to Clinton’s 1,589 delegates. Right now, it seems to be all about the math with nine primaries left.

500 of the 800 un-pledged delegates have already said who they are for,” Dean said. “The remaining 300 will do that by the end of June and we’ll know who our nominee is and that’s what we need to do.”

Rev. Jeremiah Wright is making headlines again with his media tour. He has been explaining his controversial comments and is also speaking out about Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.

When something is taken like a sound bite for a political purpose and put constantly over and over again, looped in the face of the public, that’s not a failure to communicate,” Wright said. “Those who are doing that are communicating exactly what they want to do, which is to paint me as some sort of fanatic or as the learned journalist from The New York Times called me, a ‘wackadoodle.’”

Wright blamed the media for creating controversy surrounding the Obama campaign.

I think they wanted to communicate that I am unpatriotic, that I am un-American, that I am filled with hate speech, that I have a cult at Trinity United Church of Christ.”

National Public Radio senior political analyst Juan Williams said that Rev. Wright’s recent comments will once again be detrimental for the Obama camp.

If you’re with the Barack Obama campaign this morning, you’re pulling your hair out.”