By Keith Perine, CQ Staff

Although neither political party yet knows who its presidential nominee will be this year, the Supreme Court heard arguments Wednesday in a pair of cases that could affect the outcome of a close contest.

The cases, Crawford v. Marion County Election Board and Indiana Democratic Party v. Rokita, test the constitutionality of an Indiana law requiring voters to show photo identifcation at the polls. The high court will weigh the state’s interest in preventing voter fraud against the burden placed on voters who do not have photo IDs.

A decision is expected during the heat of the presidential election campaign next summer, against a backdrop of various new election laws passed across the country after the disputed 2000 election.

Opponents say the Indiana law unfairly burdens poor and the elderly, voters who tend to favor Democrats but are least likely to have driver’s licenses. Proponents counter that Indiana’s interest in preventing voter impersonation fraud outweighs whatever burden might be placed on a small number of people. Non-drivers can obtain official photo ID cards, they note.

Few of the justices, especially swing vote Anthony M. Kennedy , gave many clues during the hourlong oral arguments as to which way they were leaning.

Justice Antonin Scalia pressed the attorney for the challengers, Paul M. Smith, about whether his clients, including the Indiana Democratic Party, had legal standing to bring the case. An Indiana federal district court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit both ruled in favor of the law after concluding that the challengers did have standing. But Scalia observed that “the lower courts are sometimes wrong” and “these [voters] can bring their own individual challenges.”

Smith argued that the Indiana Democratic Party has standing because it “clearly is injured in its own right as an organization” by the law. He pointed out that there is “not a single recorded example of voter impersonation” in Indiana to justify the law.

Kennedy focused on whether Indiana could devise some “less stringent” way of preventing voter fraud. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg raised the possibility of providing photo identification to voters when they register.

Indiana Solicitor General Thomas Fisher, who defended the law before the court, seized on the standing issue, telling the court that “we don’t have anybody in front of this court in this case who has been injured by this law.”

The Justice Department has sided with Indiana, supporting its statute. U.S. Solicitor General Paul D. Clement told the court that the law is constitutional. He also said the court should reject the broad “facial challenge” to the law and wait for an “as-applied challenge” by a specific voter without a photo ID who was prevented from casting a ballot.

Smith said that would force the court to sort through myriad challenges, case by case, to decide whether a particular voter had standing.

“To paraphrase King Lear, that way lies madness,” Smith said.

Outside the court, Indiana Democratic Party Chairman Dan Parker said the law is “a solution looking for a problem.” Fisher said there is a “glaring hole in the election security process,” adding that “we’ve got a problem with voter confidence.”