Maine U.S. Senate candidate Charlie Summers is still serving as Maine's secretary of state, and it was in that capacity that he created the so-called "Commission to Study the Conduct of Elections in Maine." That panel convened last night in Augusta in the first of eight public hearings. As A.J. Higgins reports, photo identification was a common theme of the meeting.

The stated purpose of the special commission ordered by Summers was to gather the thoughts of Maine's citizens on the state's elections system. Summers wasn't at the Augusta forum last night, but it's unlikely that he would share the viewpoint expressed by Laura Harper of the Maine Women's Lobby.

"There is one policy that we do wish to specifically caution you against and it's commonly known as voter ID," Harper said.

Voter ID was also on the mind of Zach Heiden, the legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Maine.

"Voter ID, as you've heard from a number of people, raises a number of problems, in particular for groups of people who are less likely to have ID that would be recognized as a valid voter ID: the elderly, racial minorities, young people, people with disabilities," Heiden said.

The Commission to Study the Conduct of Elections was created by a past supporter of voter ID initiatives, Secretary of State Charlie Summers. Summers has also supported a bill that eliminated same-day voter registration that was enacted by the Legislature, but overturned by the voters in a so-called people's veto election.

Summers also launched a lengthy investigation into voter fraud that produced one case of illegal voting. Summers did not attend the commission's first public hearing. But earlier this year he said he had no regrets about the voter fraud investigation.

"Since our investigation was initiated last summer, and to this day, we've turned over 50 cases to the Attorney General's office," he said. "And there are many of those cases that we were unable to discuss during all this last summer because they were under investigation, and we turned them over for possible prosecution at this point in time. And I think that any time when you look at a system like Maine's voter system, I think healthy things can come out of that."

The five-member commission is itself one of those "healthy things" and is expected to report its findings to a legislative policy committee in February. But Patrick Eisenhart, of Augusta, who spoke at the hearing, says an acting secretary of state should not be allowed to run for elected office and remain in control of the election system.

"No doubt our secretary is running an honest and just campaign, but what if he were not?" Eisenhart said. "Where would the voters go to make an objection or to register a complaint for voter fraud? So my recommendation for the election process would be that if the secretary of state were to run for office, for re-election or for another office that he recuse himself or take a sabbatical and appoint somebody to do that function."

Although the vast majority of those speaking favored more -- rather than less -- access to the ballot for Maine voters, one woman said she worried about voters casting more than one vote in multiple communities. Christine Keller, the town clerk for Fairfield, said she favored changes in the system that would allow clerks to update the names of new voters in their respective communities from the state's central voter registration system whenever a voter changes residency.