Illinoisans vote to keep state flag as is

CHICAGO (CN) — Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias announced Thursday that after a monthslong state flag redesign effort, the current state flag — consisting of the Illinois state seal and the state name on a blank white background — isn’t going anywhere.

“Some may call it an SOB — a seal on a bedsheet — and the vexillologists may hate on it, but the people have spoken loudly and clearly,” Giannoulias said in a public statement Thursday.

The state secretary’s announcement follows the close of public voting on 13 flag designs, including the current flag, that began in January. The effort to redesign Illinois’ current flag started in earnest in August 2023, when Democratic Governor JB Pritzker approved a state senate bill establishing the Illinois Flag Commission. Giannoulias’ office reported the flag commission received 4,844 submissions during a six-week submission period in late 2024, with the 10 finalists announced in December. Besides the current flag and the finalists’ new designs, the commission included the state’s centennial and sesquicentennial flags designed in 1918 and 1968, respectively.

Nearly 385,000 Illinoisans cast votes on the flag designs. While about 57% of the voters favored a new flag for the state, these votes were dispersed among the 12 other designs. The current state flag, adopted in 1970 as an alteration of a design dating to 1915, took the remaining 43% — 165,602 votes in total.

The closest runner-up, receiving 32,898 votes, features a yellow sun on a sky blue background rising over curved, green-and-white striped fields. Three white Chicago stars hang above the sun. The designer — a lifelong Illinois resident — said they wanted to honor Illinois’ prairies and agriculture, as well as the state’s northern, central and southern cultural regions.

Another two finalist designs also featured the six-pointed Chicago star, and two more included silhouettes of Abraham Lincoln. One design centered on a stylized violet — the state flower — with its petals composed of corn kernels, which together also formed a pronged industrial gear. Yet another centered an orange silhouette of a monarch butterfly — another Illinois symbol — on a navy blue background surrounded by 21 five-pointed stars. Many designs referenced the number 21, alluding to how Illinois was the 21st state to join the union.

Though a majority of Illinoisans voted to keep the current state flag, the final say rests with the Illinois General Assembly. Giannoulias’ office said the flag commission will prepare a report on its findings and recommendations for state legislators by April 1. The legislators will then vote on whether to keep the current flag design or adopt a new one.

As Giannoulias noted in his public statement Thursday, the current state flag has faced criticism from vexillology enthusiasts. A 2001 North American Vexillological Association survey ranked Illinois’ flag 49th out of the 72 state and territory flags it considered. This stands in stark contrast to the Chicago flag — the North American Vexillological Association deemed it the second-best city flag in the country in 2004, behind only the city flag of Washington, D.C.

In Chicago itself, the city flag is also much more popular, sometimes joining the U.S. flag without its state cousin outside public buildings. The Chicago flag’s iconic four red six-pointed stars and two sky blue stripes adorn everything from coffee mugs to gym shorts to alley murals to full-sleeve tattoos — unlike the state seal featured on the state flag.

Though Illinois’ flag doesn’t look like it will be changing anytime soon, other flags in the region have recently had their own makeovers.

Cook County, which includes Chicago and its collar suburbs, adopted a new flag in June 2022. The new flag, designed by a then-high school student in the Chicago suburbs, features a stylized horizontal Y-shape reminiscent of the Chicago municipal symbol. In the crook of the Y are six red seven-pointed stars arranged in a circle. This flag replaced the older county flag that more closely resembled the state flag: a white background emblazoned with “Cook County” and featuring a depiction of the county surrounded by a ring of gold stars.

Minnesota also adopted a new flag last May, featuring a dark blue field roughly in the shape of the state emblazoned with an eight-pointed white star and adjoined to a sky blue arrow-shaped field. Like in Illinois, efforts to redesign the Minnesota flag began in earnest in 2023.

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