On some level, it's an easy mistake to make.

For years now there's been a cute, wavy flag printed in the instructions of the absentee ballot for Atascosa County, near San Antonio. The only problem is that it's not a Texas flag — it's the flag of Chile.

As anyone who has been watching non-stop coverage of the rescue of the miners in Chile can note, the flag of that South American country and Texas are remarkably similar. They're both based loosely on the American flag, with a single white star in a blue bar next to big white and red stripes.

The difference is that the blue on the Texas flag stretches vertically down the entire left third, while on the Chilean version the blue section sits solely on the upper half, with the red stripe running over the entire bottom half.

But still, if anyone should be able to spot the difference, it's the officials in state and local government. (Behind perhaps the groundskeepers in charge of flag pole maintenance and Six Flags employees.)

It took a concerned voter —Troy Knudson, a doctoral candidate studying in Japan — to point out the mistake to election officials.

"I guess it's funny in some way, but my initial reaction was more disbelief that no one had noticed," Knudson told the Austin-American Statesman.

County election administrator Janice Ruple blamed the error on her predecessor (we've heard that one before) and said she had no idea how long the flag had been there before she took the job three years ago.

Though it wasn't explicitly mentioned, we have to wonder if the publicity of the recent miner disaster and rescue had a hand in the error finally being noticed. The news coverage of the rescue has been replete with images of the flag on signs held by families and supporters. Before this incident, who could have identified the Chilean flag?

The new Atascosa ballots have been scrubbed of all extraneous information, which is a shame. There's nothing like clip art and an absentee ballot for an impromptu civics lesson. We suggest adding the flag of Liberia and having citizens identify the right flag for an extra vote.