Israel’s Central Elections Committee said on Wednesday that no evidence of irregularities affecting election integrity or results for the 26th Knesset has been found, paving the way to presenting the official results to Israeli President Isaac Herzog later in the day.
The CEC “examined every complaint and request for review submitted by political parties, candidate lists and members of the public, including all polling stations identified in those submissions,” the committee spokesperson’s office said in a statement.
The review involved examining records from 9,069 polling stations. Where necessary, officials conducted more detailed checks of election materials, including ballot papers, voter registers and other documentation, the statement read.
The statement went on to say that some 250 public-sector lawyers, working alongside committee staff, carried out the review over six working days, from Oct. 28 through Nov. 3.
Seven examination rooms and a dedicated operations center operated in morning and evening shifts, it added.
Dean Livne, the committee’s acting director general, said that every complaint was examined “individually and thoroughly.” The committee has the responsibility to voters and parties to “examine every claim carefully,” and “make our findings public,” he added.
The hard work of the committee’s staff and the legal teams “has enabled us to complete this review and present the public with carefully verified results that accurately reflect the choices voters made at the ballot box,” Livne said.
CEC chairman Justice Noam Sohlberg said that the committee conducted thorough checks of an “unprecedented number” of polling stations.
“The scale and quality of this review demonstrate the Central Elections Committee’s commitment to ensuring that the election results reflect the voters’ choices as accurately as possible. I would like to thank everyone involved for their hard work, professionalism and dedication,” he added.
The publication of the committee’s findings shows that 9,069 polling stations were reviewed, representing approximately 75% of all 12,018 regular polling stations. This is a 78% increase compared with the 25th Knesset election, when 5,100 polling stations, or 43.5%, were reviewed.
Of the 9,069 polling stations, 350 underwent detailed examinations of voting materials and documentation. More than 2,450 requests for reviews concerning 1,350 polling stations were submitted by political parties and candidate lists. Another 1,239 requests were received from members of the public on Election Day and afterward, concerning 750 polling stations.
All requests were examined in the committee’s review process, according to the statement.
Election fraud suspicions
The integrity of the general vote that took place on Oct. 27 came under question after Sohlberg last week instructed Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) head David Zini to investigate suspected foreign funding and election bribery in Tuesday’s Knesset election, according to a letter shared with JNS.
“Serious suspicions have been brought before me of improper influence, through foreign funding by external actors acting against the Israeli interest, on the elections,” Sohlberg wrote.
“I cannot attest to the nature of the aforementioned suspicions,” he continued. Because the suspicions concern foreign actors, there is “a duty to investigate them properly,” he wrote.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party on Oct. 28 accused Arab parties of stealing the election through widespread fraud and called for a police and Shin Bet investigation.
The party alleged that thousands of envelopes containing cash and United Arab List (Ra’am Party) ballots were found at polling stations in Arab communities. It also alleged identity fraud and ballot-count discrepancies.
In a statement the following day, the party called what it dubbed the “Ra’amgate affair” an “earthquake.”
“They stole the election in Israel!” Likud said in a statement shared by Netanyahu on X.
Likud lawmaker Amit Halevi told JNS on Wednesday that the CEC’s certification of the results was meaningless as long as suspicions of foreign interference remain.
Earlier this week, Halevi told JNS that Likud had flagged 1,200 suspected irregularities to the CEC, most of them at Arab-majority polling stations. He said the party had identified 1,300 such polling stations nationwide.
“On Oct. 7, terrorists reached Israeli territory 10 kilometers beyond the border. Now, they’ve reached the Knesset in Jerusalem, 100 kilometers from the border, without firing a shot,” Halevi said, referring to the Hamas-led invasion of southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
“It’s not a political party issue. It’s about loyalty to the State of Israel and our sovereignty. Israeli citizens cannot accept a situation in which people from foreign countries and hostile entities interfere in our elections and gain entry to the Knesset without firing a shot,” he said. “We must ensure that the election results reflect the votes of Israeli citizens, not those of the Qatari, Iranian or Turkish regimes. This is our duty. There are troubling indications of involvement by foreign enemy regimes and entities in our elections, and that is a red line,” he added.
Likud emerged from the Oct. 27 election as the largest party with 27 seats, followed by Yashar with 21 and B’Yachad with 12. The Joint List won 11 seats, The Democrats and Ra’am eight each, Yisrael Beiteinu, United Torah Judaism and Otzma Yehudit seven each, and Shas and the Religious Zionist Party six each.
The two Arab parties, Joint List alliance and Ra’am, together won 19 seats, leaving neither of the Zionist blocs with a majority and setting the stage for tough coalition negotiations.
Herzog to meet faction leaders
At noon on Wednesday, Herzog will receive the official results of the elections from Sohlberg, in accordance with procedure and Israeli law.
According to Israel’s legal procedures, the president meets with representatives of each faction and hears its recommendations for a candidate to forge the next government coalition. Following the consultations, he assigns the task to a member of Knesset.
Herzog is slated to begin the round of consultations with all elected political parties at 5 p.m. on Wednesday. The first faction scheduled to meet with the president is Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s Religious Zionist Party.
The other meetings in order will be ultra-Orthodox Shas faction at 6:15 p.m., Avigdor Liberman’s Yisrael Beiteinu party at 7:30 p.m. and the Zehut party, led by former lawmaker Moshe Feiglin, at 8:45 p.m., according to the president.
Faction leaders who wish to make an official statement to the media will be able to do so following their meeting with the president.
