Phil Izon didn’t choose to become an election integrity advocate. This issue chose him. It was after a conversation Phil had with his grandfather regarding confusion over completing a ranked-choice voting (RCV) ballot in Alaska that led him to build a small organization to fight to remove this way of voting from Alaska’s elections.
AMAC Action is a veteran of the battle to stop RCV, having engaged the AMAC membership and lobbying legislatures in states throughout the country. As we’ve reported, RCV is a confusing and complex system where voters rank several candidates in order of preference instead of just voting for their chosen candidate. The experience Phil’s grandfather had with a RCV ballot highlights the need to get rid of this unnecessary voting method.
AMAC Action is proud to work alongside advocates like Phil Izon whose contributions to election integrity truly make a difference. Here is a brief look into Phil’s journey from private citizen to citizen advocate.
AMAC Action: How did ranked-choice voting come into being in Alaska?
Phil: Ranked-choice voting was pushed in Alaska with 99 percent out-of-state money. It came from a citizens’ initiative. They flew people from out-of-state to Alaska to get signatures [from people] that were not Alaskans. They were not citizens doing the citizens’ initiative. They were out-of-state people. Paid signature collectors. They spent about $7 million getting it on the ballot and getting it approved. They won by half a percent. They lost [on] election night, and then after mail-in voting and absentee voting, they won by half a percent.
And so that’s how ranked-choice voting came to Alaska.
AMAC Action: What has the experience been using ranked-choice voting in Alaska?
Phil: We technically have had 2 elections with it [but] I’d say [they were] the most miserable elections.
The general election had the lowest voter turnout ever in the entire history of the state by percentage, [a] pretty significant drop-off.
We had [US Rep] Don Young pass away and because he passed away, the governor would have appointed a replacement to finish out his term. Then, there would have been an election.
There would not have been a special election. It just would have been an election in the fall, and someone would have replaced Don Young. But because of ranked-choice voting, they had changed that.
And now it required a special election. So, no appointment and then it went to the special primary that had Sarah Palin, Nick Begich, Mary Peltola, and others on [the ballot]. In that race, you had 115, 000 votes go to Republicans, and you only had 75, 000 votes go to a Democrat, and yet the Democrat won the election.
AMAC Action: I take it ranked-choice voting is not very popular in the state of Alaska?
Phil: We collected 43,000 signatures and we turned [them] in a month early. We battled George Soros and friends the entire time we were [gathering] our signatures.
So, I would say that no, Alaska really didn’t like it because they helped us get this project done.
AMAC Action: Let’s talk about the project, Phil. How did you get involved in this effort to put ranked-choice voting on the ballot for the people to decide?
Phil: It’s interesting because my wife and I weren’t living in Alaska during the 2020 election when ranked-choice voting was voted in, and we weren’t very familiar with it. But, come fall after the special general [election] and all these weird elections with Democrats winning, even though they had 30,000 less votes, I was like, this isn’t really okay. It really came down to a phone call from my grandfather. He called me and [asked me] “what do you think of the rank choice thing?”
And I [told him] it was interesting and he [told me] “I didn’t know how to fill out the ballot.” And so, at that point, I [needed] to do something about this.
I found the law that they had changed, and then I had a couple of [state] legislative members that already had drawn up legislation about removing ranked-choice voting [send me their bill].
I just changed the language, and then I sent [the bill] off to the sponsors. We collected 180 sponsors. A lot of those sponsors were Lieutenant Governors, Senators, former Senators, Sarah Palin, and a bunch of great people who were very committed to getting rid of ranked-choice voting.
AMAC Action: You started all of this from scratch, right?
Phil: Correct. And there were no big non-profits involved at this time. It was just me and two or three other people.
AMAC Action: How do you set out to get those thousands and thousands of signatures necessary to get this on the ballot?
Phil: I had worked on campaigns previously, but nothing this large and nothing this extensive. So, I had a very specific window. We went and got Alaska maps and put them up on the walls all over the place.
I had four or five of them in my office, and then I started writing sticky notes with people that could be in charge of a particular area. I just put sticky notes on numbers, and then I started making calls to people and asking them for their support and setting up meetings for me to go and speak at their group meetings.
I drove to Kenai and Homer and Fairbanks, and I flew to Ketchikan and Sitka and Juneau. This is a huge state, by land area, it’s the largest state in the country. There’s another caveat to Alaska’s elections that make this state particularly difficult to do petitions. In 2007, the legislature changed the rules from where it used to be just a minimum signature requirement.
Now, it’s a minimum plus 7 percent of the most recent election from at least 30 or 40 house districts. That means you literally must travel the entire state to get that project completed. We were the first citizen-run initiative since they put the new rules in place that actually did this successfully.
I used signing locations and signing events as a way to draw crowds in versus just standing in front of a grocery store. It’s a much more effective solution than what other people have done. And there’s a couple reasons why.
I would put out a blast saying we can be in a particular location. We sent that in a newsletter in text messages, and we sent that out in digital advertising. And then we would follow up with the radio, just me getting on the radio and telling people I’m going to be at a location. I picked popular locations that most people in the area would know.
And then I would set up signature books from early in the morning till late in the afternoon, and we would have hundreds of people show up. These people were obviously motivated, they took [time] out of their day to drive to this location to sign the petition.
I took it one step further and I had stacks of petition books with me and every time someone came in, I would ask him if they would be willing to go and get signatures. Most were more than happy to take a petition book.
And that right there is how we did it. This [was] pure grassroots, self-funded advocacy.
AMAC Action: What was the minimum requirement of signatures and how many did you end up with?
Phil: We needed 26, 000 and we got 43,000. And it’s certified, it’s on the ballot, it’s all set to go. It’ll be on the ballot November 5th. It’ll be vote “yes” to repeal ranked-choice voting from the state. [Hopefully] we’ll be the first state in the country to get rid of rank choice voting.
AMAC Action: Are you forecasting a victory?
Phil: I’m estimating we will get it repealed [with] 55% or 58% [of the vote].
