Associated Press - October 12, 2010 7:45 AM ET
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) - Election officials in Atascosa (a-tuhs-KOH'-suh) County are correcting a mistake on absentee ballots to remove the flag of Chile, which is similar to the Texas banner.
Voter Troy Knudson noticed the error. Knudson told the Austin American-Statesman that election officials congratulated him "for preventing future Atascosa voters from seeing the flag mistake."
The flags of Texas and Chile both have a white stripe on top and a red one on the bottom, plus a single star in the middle of a blue field.
In the Chilean flag the blue is only in the top left corner. The Texas flag displayed the blue all along the left side.
Current elections administrator Janice Ruple blames a previous worker for the mixup and says "We just never caught it."
I noticed that while watching the Chile Mine rescue updates. I says the wife "why are they flying the Texas state flag?" Then I noticed the blue.
Dam copy cats.
Who stole it from whom?
A bit of history on flags flown in Chile in the past.
The first records on the possible use of flags by indigenous peoples date back to the War of Arauco, the most famous being the use described in the late 16th century epic poem La Araucana. In Canto XXI, Alonso de Ercilla described Talcahuano, warrior and chief of the Mapuche who inhabited the lands near the present-day city that bears his name, bearing emblems of blue, white and red.
Two flags have been documented as used by Mapuche troops. However, these descriptions were made late in the eighteenth century without certainty about the age of them. One consisted of a five-pointed white star on a blue background similar to the canton of the current Chilean flag, while the second had a white eight-pointed star centered on a blue diamond with border zigzagged over a black background.
