PORTLAND, Maine — Demonstrators wearing Guy Fawkes masks on Wednesday in Portland’s Monument Square expressed anger over a wide-ranging list of grievances, from chemical food additives to the high costs of education and health care.

The protest was scheduled in recognition of Guy Fawkes Day, which this year fell the day after Election Day. For at least one demonstrator, that timing was appropriate.

A man who identified himself only as “Halifax” held up a sign lamenting the re-election of Gov. Paul LePage. On one side, the sign read “Not my governor.” On the other side, it read, “How do you spell succession [sic].”

Others on hand held signs drawing attention to what they considered government corruption, bank fraud and social oppression.

“There’s not one unifying message. It’s just a day of action,” Halifax said. “I’m all for independence, whatever that looks like. Municipal secession should be on the table. It shouldn’t be this radical thing.”

The re-election of LePage was an unpopular move in Portland, a heavily left-leaning city where voters supported Democratic challenger Mike Michaud and where city officials have clashed with the Republican administration over welfare policies, along other things.

But while Halifax wanted to consider breaking Portland away from Maine because of Tuesday’s vote, others at the demonstration derided voting as a false choice, saying all politicians on both sides of the aisle are corrupt and controlled by corporate interests.

“Voting can’t do anything,” said one Scarborough High School student who asked to be anonymous.

In 1605, Fawkes, a Catholic zealot, was part of a conspiracy to blow up the British House of Lords by igniting gunpowder underneath the building. He was caught, arrested and executed before pulling off the plot. Nov. 5, the date of his arrest, was established as a holiday in Great Britain to celebrate his failure.

In more recent years, however, anti-establishment groups have used Fawkes as an icon, symbolizing dissatisfaction with government or large corporations, and have recast Guy Fawkes Day as a protest holiday.

“He became a symbol of last resort and anarchy when the system becomes corrupt,” the student said.

The Portland demonstration was a local branch of the Million Mask March, a network of protests in cities around the world promoted by the loosely organized hacktivist group Anonymous, which has millions of online followers and has used the recognizable Fawkes imagery to help them rally.

The Fawkes movement picked up a popular boost in 2005 with release of the Hollywood movie “V for Vendetta,” a cult hit based on a 1980s comic strip set in post-apocalyptic England, where a rebel in a Guy Fawkes mask tries to overthrow the fascist regime in charge.