Last week, Maine voters decisively overturned a law that had prohibited Election Day registration. But some Republicans in Augusta are considering a second pass at revising the state's balloting laws. A bill requiring voters to show a photo identification in order to cast their ballots is on tap for next year's legislative session. While some GOP lawmakers say the bill is needed to tighten up the state's election laws, one conservative Republican is warning that renewing the call for tougher voter registration requirements could backfire on the majority party at the State House.

When 60 percent of Mainers casting ballots in last week's election chose to reject a Republican-inspired law that banned same day voter registration, Democrats knew they had found an issue that could leave the majority party politically vulnerable.

Still, there are those in Augusta who think that Maine needs to make its election system more secure by requiring Mainers to show a photo identification card in order to cast their ballots in state elections.

"I don't know if we'll have enough votes in the House and Senate to pass it, but it's still a good idea," says Rep. Rich Cebra, a Naples Republican who is sponsoring the bill.

Cebra's bill has more than 80 GOP co-sponsors. It was carried over from this year's legislation session and is among the bills scheduled to be taken up in January. State Sen. David Trahan, of Waldoboro, was an early sponsor of the measure, and while he still thinks it's the right bill, he's convinced the timing's all wrong.

"I do think that the referendum question--Question 1--changed that dynamic," Trahan says. "And I think you're going to see some gun-shy folks revisiting something to do with voting."

Trahan, a conservative Republican who will be leaving the Legislature next year to run the Sportsman's Alliance of Maine, says Maine voters spoke loudly in rejecting the GOP law that eliminated same-day voer registration. He says Republicans who might have otherwise been inclined to pursue the photo ID bill may be worried about the impact that support could have on their re-elction bids next fall.

"I think you're going to find that the political atmosphere is going to be very reluctant to change the election laws," Trahan says.

Mark Brewer, a political science professor at the University of Maine, says Trahan's political instincts are spot on. "After getting the attempt to end same-day voter registration shot down in such dramatic fashion, if I was a Republican policy-maker who had supported this voter ID bill in the past, I would certainly, at the very least, take a little bit of time and reconsider."

But some GOP lawmakers take a different view of last week's election results. "I'm not sure that Question 1's defeat changes the dynamics of the electorate, I think that's different question," says state Rep. Gary Knight.

Knight, a Livermore Falls Republican, says that while both bills involved access to the ballot box, they pivot on very different issues. Knight says many people he has spoken with like the idea of a photo ID.

"If you go into a bar, rent a video, on and on and on, our society has come to accept the need to identify themselves," Knight says. "For something as important as voting I think it's imperative that we make sure that the integrity of the system is protected."

Rep. Rich Cebra, the sponsor of the photo ID bill, says his bill is simply an attempt to close weaknesses in the voter registration system, and that Democrats are simply trying to exploit and manipulate public opinon on the issue because they don't want to confront other GOP legislative successes.

But Democratic state Sen. Barry Hobbins, of Saco, says Cebra's proposal is just another attempt to put up barriers on Election Day. "Voter ID is another measure that overreaches and attempts to make voting more difficult," he says.

Maine lawmakers are scheduled to return to the State House on January 4th.