2021 state budget debate Knesset PR pic
The polls are open – more than 12,000 of them nationwide – as 6.8 million Israelis with the right to vote are set to elect the 25th Knesset and a new government on Tuesday. The parties are all hoping for a high voter turnout.
This election comes just 18 months after the previous one was held in March, 2023. The last time there was a relatively low turnout at the polls with just 67.44% of all people voting, and this in a country that usually sees well over an 80% rate of voting.
Israel enjoys a high rate of voter turnout, unlike America, for a number of reasons. First of all, there is automatic voter registration and every citizen is informed ahead of time where their polling station is. This is helped by laws that require every citizen to register his home address with the Interior Ministry.
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And Election Day in Israel is a national holiday. Everyone has off from work, schools are closed as well as all government offices and public transportation is free to help get people to the polls. This, of course, makes for a great day for shopping and going out. Sales abound and places of entertainment are packed. This makes it worthwhile for a small business to pay its employees double for the day as they are required to by law.
And this year, more than ever, it is all about voter turnout. And the respective party leaders know it. This is why they have all been campaigning hard at the last minute making calls for their people to just come out and vote.
For example, the Arab parties this year are all polling on the edge of not passing the minimum 3.25% threshold for getting into the Knesset. In the past, they ran together in a joint list. Today, at least one is probably going to fail to get past the threshold and the other two will only get 8 seats between them, down from 13 as a joint list a few years ago.
Israel has proportional representation. If a party gets 10% of the vote then it gets 12 of the 120 seats in the Knesset. Each party prepares a list of candidates in order of who will will fill its setas.
The “wasted” votes from the party that fails to get into the Knesset are expected to help the right-wing block. This is because the parties’ respective allotment of seats in the Keenest is based on the percentage of the vote of just those parties that passed the threshold. So a 10% share of the initial vote could lead to a 12% share of the votes that actually counted or 2 more Knesset seats.
But why is Israel seeing such low voter turnout?
Well, it is basically due to voter fatigue.
This is the fifth national election in Israel since April 2019. After the first 2019 elections, Israel experienced something that had never happened before: no one party could form a government and so new elections had to be called – again.
And just 6 months later, in September of 2019, it happened again – no government could be formed.
Then there was a brief government under Benjamin Netanyahu that lasted about 6 months before a fourth round of elections were held. Then the current coalition government was formed and lasted for a year before it fell and elections were called – again.
Oh well! Maybe soon Israel will have annual elections or even weekly?
