A bad idea, flag-wise

Danica Coto has a Time article from The Associated Press about the fifty-first state, maybe:

Puerto Ricans will get the chance this Sunday to tell Congress which political status they want for the U.S. territory, currently mired in an economic crisis that has triggered an exodus of islanders to the mainland. Congress has final say over whether to approve the outcome of the referendum that offers voters three choices: statehood, free association/independence, or its current territorial status.
Many expect supporters of statehood to dominate the vote, because three parties that favor other options are boycotting, including the island's main opposition party.
Among those hoping Puerto Rico will become the fifty-first state is Pedro Pierluisi, the island's former congressional representative. "Let's send a loud and clear message to the United States and the entire world," he said in a statement. "That message is that we not only want our US citizenship, but we want equal treatment."
The referendum coincides with the hundredth anniversary of the United States granting citizenship to Puerto Ricans, though they are barred from voting in presidential elections and have only one congressional representative with limited voting powers.
Many believe the island's territorial status has contributed to its ten-year economic recession, which was largely sparked by decades of heavy borrowing and the elimination of Federal tax incentives. Puerto Rico is exempt from Federal income tax, but it still pays Social Security and Medicare and local taxes, and receives less Federal funding than the other states.
Nearly half a million Puerto Ricans have moved to the mainland in the past decade to find a more affordable cost of living or jobs, as the island of three and a half million people struggles with a twelve percent unemployment rate.
Those who remain behind have been hit with new taxes and higher utility bills on an island where food is twenty percent more expensive than the mainland and public services are sixty percent more expensive. Those who oppose statehood warn that Puerto Rico will struggle even more financially because it will be forced to pay millions of dollars in Federal taxes. Many also worry the island will lose its cultural identity.
A spokesman for the Justice Department told The Associated Press that the agency has not reviewed or approved the ballot's language. Federal officials in April rejected an original version, in part because it did not offer the territory's current status as an option. The administration of Governor Ricardo Rossello added it and sent the ballot back for review, but the Department said it needed more time and asked that the vote be postponed, which it wasn't.
Sunday's referendum is the fifth for Puerto Rico. No clear majority emerged in the first three referendums, with voters almost evenly divided between statehood and the status quo. During the last referendum in 2012, fifty percent said they wanted a status change. Sixty-one percent who answered a second question said they favored statehood, but nearly half a million voters left that question blank, leading many to claim the results were not legitimate. Thousands of Puerto Ricans already cast their vote earlier this week in the newest referendum, including inmates and those who are hospitalized.

Rico says that redesigning the Federal flag to accommodate another star will be problematic...