Enemies of democracy

The people responsible for this, and the people who benefit from it.

A phony State Board of Elections flier advising Republicans to vote on Nov. 4 and Democrats on Nov. 5 is being circulated in several Hampton Roads localities, according to state elections officials.

In fact, Election Day, for voters of all political stripes, remains Nov. 4.

The somewhat official-looking flier - it features the state board logo and the state seal - is dated Oct. 24 and indicates that "an emergency session of the General Assembly has adopted the follwing (sic) emergency regulations to ease the load on local electorial (sic) precincts and ensure a fair electorial process."

The four-paragraph flier concludes with: "We are sorry for any inconvenience this may cause but felt this was the only way to ensure fairness to the complete electorial process."

No emergency action has been taken by the General Assembly. It is not in session and lacks the authority to change the date of a federal election.

State Board of Election officials today said they are aware of the flier but disavowed any connection to it.

"It's not even on our letterhead; they just copied the logo from our Web site," said agency staffer Ryan Enright, noting the flier has been forwarded to State Police for investigation as a possible incident of voter intimidation.

This tactic isn't new, but every time it happens, it reveals Republicans as the enemies of Democracy that they are. Republicans do things like this for the same reason they vilify organizations like ACORN: They have no interest in the will of the people or in seeing that all Americans have a voice in the democratic process. They would rather suppress the voices of people who don't support them in order to protect their own positions of wealth, power and privilege.

And that folks, is fascism.