Mississippi votes Tuesday on state flag

Voters will have two choices: keep the 1894 flag with the Confederate emblem of stars and bars...   ...or adopt a new flag that replaces the Confederate symbol with 20 white stars on a blue square, denoting Mississippi's role as the 20th state in the Union

JACKSON, Mississippi (CNN) -- Mississippi voters go to the polls Tuesday to decide whether to keep the Confederate battle emblem on their state flag or choose a new design with no reference to the state's Rebel past.

Proponents of the new flag, including business interests in the state, have spent more than $639,000 in a sophisticated campaign complete with polling, consultants and $150,000 in radio advertising, according to the most recent campaign disclosure documents filed with the Mississippi Secretary of State's office.

By contrast, the documents show four groups opposed to changing the flag have spent about $125,000, which came mostly from individual contributors and was spent on printing, mailing, yard signs, billboards and ads on cable TV, small town TV and radio stations and newspapers.

Polls by The Associated Press and other news organizations in March showed a majority of voters were opposed to changing the flag. Those polls were conducted before the campaign headed into high gear.

Mississippi is the last state which prominently displays the Confederate battle emblem on its flag, which is derided by critics as a symbol of racism and slavery but is viewed by supporters as a statement of Southern heritage and pride. The emblem consists of 13 white stars over a blue X on a field of red.

The battle in Mississippi is the latest in a series of skirmishes over the use of Confederate symbols by Southern states. Earlier this year, the Georgia Legislature removed the Confederate battle emblem from its prominent place on the state flag at the behest of Democratic Gov. Roy Barnes. In 2000, South Carolina officials took the Confederate battle flag down from atop the Statehouse in Columbia after a legislative vote. The state flag, which does not contain the Rebel battle symbol, was not changed.

Polls across Mississippi will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. CDT. Ballots will contain color renditions of the two flag designs. Write-in votes for other designs are not permitted.

The current flag, adopted in 1894, contains the Confederate battle emblem in the upper corner. The rest of the flag consists of three bars of equal depth -- the top one blue, the middle one white and the bottom one red.

The new flag design is similar to the current design, except that the Confederate emblem is replaced by a blue field with 19 small white stars encircling one large white star. The large star represents Mississippi; the smaller stars represent the other 19 states that were in the union when Mississippi became a state.

The law setting up the flag referendum provides that, if the new flag is adopted, no other "items, structures or areas" related to the Confederacy can be renamed without the consent of two-thirds of the Legislature.

Among the contributors to the largest group in favor of a new flag, the Mississippi Legacy Fund, are banks, insurance companies, attorneys, food processors and actor Morgan Freeman, who gave $5,000. The fund raised more than $653,000 and spent about $626,000, according to the most recent campaign disclosure reports.

In addition, the national NAACP gave its local branches in Mississippi $50,000 for the campaign to change the flag. About $13,000 of that had been spent, as of the last disclosure report.

The biggest effort against changing the flag has been made by Mississippi's Sons of Confederate Veterans, which raised and spent about $112,500. Confederate heritage groups from Texas, Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia, Arkansas, Tennessee and Louisiana contributed to the effort, and the state Sons of Confederate Veterans distributed some of the money it raised to affiliate groups aroundMississippi for their local campaigns.

Three smaller groups opposed to changing the flag -- the Committee to Save the Mississippi State Flag, the Confederate Heritage Fund and the Mississippi Heritage Political Action Committee -- raised about $10,500 and spent about $12,800, as of the last report.

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