Israeli Voter Turnout Is High as Residents Eagerly Await Election Outcome

TEL AVIV — “I’m going to park here for a while,” a man in his 70s, Moshe, says. “This line is too long and moving really slowly.” He smiles, and parks himself on a concrete slab, right next to several dozen voters who stand and wait patiently to enter a Tel Aviv high school classroom, where they’re assigned to cast their vote.Schools around the country have similar long lines. Five hours after the ballots opened, more than 2 million Israelis already voted, according to the central election committee. With 31.5 percent of eligible voters voting as of noon, election participation was highest since the milestone vote of 1977, which for the first time brought to power a non-socialist party, Menachem Begin’s Likud. In voting sites across the country, politicians from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on down smiled for cameras as they dropped an envelope containing their ballot in a blue box. Press outlets also aired pictures of local and international celebrities. Hollywood’s Gal Gadot, known as Wonder Woman, flashed a smile to a television camera, and urged all eligible Israelis to come out and vote. Turnout is projected to exceed past records of 70 percent, which is higher than in most democracies. If so, though, two small parties might fail to cross the threshold of 3.25 percent of all eligible voters. “Based on the published figures, there is absolutely no chance that parties currently below the electoral threshold will cross it,” finance minister Betzalel Smotrich said as he voted at a Samaria settlement, Kedumim. Instead, Mr. Smotrich, a right winger, warned that the morning turnout was especially high in areas where the left traditionally votes. “The high turnout is the result of unusually high voting rates in the Arab sector and left-wing strongholds,” the minister said. Mr. Netanyahu’s Likud party activists reportedly also prepared to challenge the vote’s integrity if the center left wins.“The election in Israel is highly secure,” countered the Netanyahu-appointed head of Shin Bet, David Zini. “It’s impossible to steal elections in Israel, but it is possible to try to undermine their legitimacy,” the acting chairman of the central election committee, Dean Livne, added. For a country known as a startup nation, the election process is remarkably low tech. After finally reaching the classroom at the Tel Aviv high school, a voter presents an identification card to an official, who patiently checks names on a paper-bound printed list. Once checked, the official hands an open envelope carrying the signature of the verifying official.The voter then approaches a blue curtain, behind which 38 stacks of paper cards are piled in rows. The voter then picks one card, representing a favored party, inserts into the signed envelope, and then drops the ballot through a slot atop a blue box made of plastic.The top count will only start after polls are shut at 10 in the evening, local time, or 4 pm EDT, when exit polls will be announced. Ballots of diplomats at foreign countries, soldiers who have no access to voting boxes, and sailors will be counted later. Those could shift the overall results.By Wednesday elected politicians will start gathering supporters to cobble together a ruling coalition.

Israeli Voter Turnout Is High as Residents Eagerly Await Election Outcome

Israeli Voter Turnout Is High as Residents Eagerly Await Election Outcome

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