The People of Illinois Have Spoken When it Comes to the Flag

Last fall it was announced that the state of Illinois had put together a “Flag Commission” with the goal of potentially adopting a new state flag. Submissions flooded in from all over. More than the commission thought would. We followed this story from announcement, to submission date, to finals announcement, to today.

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It’s been a long slog. All along the way, following a story update the comments were predominately slanted in one direction. The message we saw was the populace thought the Illinois state flag was fine and didn’t need to be updated or replaced.

The sentiment was reflected in the flag voting. Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias made the announcement today (March 6, 2025). The current state flag of Illinois got more votes than the next five highest vote getters (of the 13) combined, taking 43% of the total. Pretty definitive.

The most common opinion we saw was that this was all a waste of time and that the state didn’t have the money to go through a switch.  Minnesota had switched up their old flag with an updated stylized one last year, adopting it last May. Utah changed their state flag last year as well. Michigan has also made noise about potentially adopting a new flag too. Illinois followed Maine’s lead in standing pat with the current flag.