Illinois Flag Redesign Initiative Draws Almost 5,000 Entries; Public Voting to Start in January

Flag of Illinois waving on a flagpole against the blue sky

OCTOBER 29, 2024 — Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias announced that the Illinois Flag Commission received 4,844 flag redesign submissions, WAND reports.

This high turnout, Giannoulias said, “encouraged us all to reflect on what makes us proud to be Illinoisans.”

The commission, formed under the 2023 Senate Bill 1818, seeks a design that represents Illinois’s diverse communities and renews state pride.

The commission will review submissions and select the top ten designs by the end of this year. Public voting, scheduled to start in January, will allow Illinois residents to choose between the shortlisted new designs and three previous iterations: the current state flag, the 1918 Centennial Flag, and the 1968 Sesquicentennial Flag. The commission will then submit its findings to the Illinois General Assembly by April 1, 2025, for a final decision on whether to adopt a new flag or retain an existing one.

The Illinois flag, first adopted in 1915 and revised in 1969 to include the state’s name, has seen over a century of minimal change. Senator Doris Turner, who co-sponsored the redesign bill, expressed that after 100 years, “it’s time to rework it.” To maintain authenticity, the commission specified that designs must not use artificial intelligence, reflecting a commitment to genuine public engagement in the state’s next chapter of visual identity.

Image: By Matt Turner, CC BY 2.0

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