The Flag Commission has narrowed their search for the next possible state flag of Mississippi to five designs from over 3,000 submissions by the public.
During Tuesday’s meeting, several of the flags were altered before the official vote to select the top five. The commission spent the majority of the meeting tweaking the top nine designs under consideration from their last meeting.
Almost immediately, the green “Magnolia Tree” flag was taken out, leaving only 8 designs to select from. Each member of the commission voted by ranking their top five.
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The final picks for the top five flags are:
There was a tie between two flags and Chair of the commission Reuben Anderson broke the tie by voting in favor of the design with the outline of the state of Mississippi and dismissing the one which depicted a magnolia and river running through it (numbers 1 and 7 on the original 9 list).
These designs will be created into actual flags so the commission can better determine which one will look the most appropriate as it flies on a pole. The commission will meet again on August 25 to assess those flags before coming back on September 2 to select the design that will go on the November ballot.
They whittled it down to nine flags last week before allowing the public to vote. The nine options were posted on the Mississippi Department of Archives and History page for the public to vote. Over 48,000 people voted for their favorite of those nine.
Out of those nine, the public voted six the highest. They were designs 9,7,3,2,1, and 8 of the original posting.
For those still unsettled by the changing of the flag, an initiative has been filed by Let Mississippi Vote to offer four designs for the public to vote on instead of only one.
The initiative proposes placing 4 flags on the ballot – the 1894 flag that was recently removed, the bicentennial flag with the state seal, the choice presented by the Flag Commission, and the Stennis, or Hospitality, Flag.
They would need to obtain 106,000 signatures of registered voters for the initiative to appear on the ballot.
Sarah Ulmer
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