Back in 2011, then-Republican Party Chair Charlie Webster called a press conference on the same day that EqualityMaine turned in their overwhelming numbers of petitions to get a vote on same-sex marriage on the ballot in 2012.

Eerily, Joseph McCarthy-like, Webster held up a file folder and said that within that folder were the names of hundreds of “persons who may have committed voter fraud in Maine.” In reality, the folder contained the names of out-of-state students who had voted, legally, while living in Orono, by using same-day registration.

That year, some Republican lawmakers had tried to advance a Voter ID law, and Governor Paul LePage signed legislation in June to repeal Maine’s sameday registration policy, which Maine has had on the books since 1973. The Voter ID law failed in the Legislature and the shortlived same-day registration repeal was soundly overturned by people’s veto in November 2011.

Instead, Secretary of State Charlie Summers was tasked with creating a study commission designed to evaluate ballot security issues.

What Summers found, after an exhaustive study, was that there had been two cases of voter fraud — and one of those a simple error that was never even prosecuted — in the 38- year history of same-day registration in Maine. Two.

That is, maybe, until now.

In the District 25 Senate race, Catherine Breen, a Democrat, appeared to have won the race narrowly over Cathleen Manchester, Republican, but in the recount, a mysterious 21 ballots appeared that were not counted in the original tally. The voter records for the town in question — Long Island — do not jibe with the total new number of ballots in the town. There are only 238 people in the whole community. Apparently, there were more ballots than voters that day. In the unofficial count, Breen received 95 votes, Manchester 65, and 11 were left blank. The total number of 171 tallies with the number of people who voted that day and voted absentee, according to the warden’s list.

The recount showed 192 ballots, but only 171 voters.

The 21 disputed ballots from Long Island — all for Manchester — swung the election for the Republican. Breen refused to sign off on the recount, after the Republicans objected to another recount.

Manchester has been provisionally seated while the investigation is conducted. The investigation begins today.

It is too soon to call what happened in Long Island “voter fraud.” But something is definitely amiss, and the sooner the issue is resolved, the better.

The Long Island ballots and other voter records were sealed and stored at the Maine State Police Headquarters in Augusta, and will be used by the seven-member Senate committe that will be conducting the investigation.

This is an issue that, unlike Webster’s grandstanding on the issue of student voters, could well be a real, true example of voting irregularity. It is important for both parties and all citizens that the issue be resolved, if we hope to have an election that can be trusted in the future.

We hope that everyone will take this investigation very seriously.