The U.S.-based elections for the World Zionist Congress 2025 have been engulfed in scandal.
Weeks after approximately 2,000 votes were tossed out due to voting irregularities in the running for the so-called “parliament of the Jewish people,” more incidents of improprieties have been discovered.
The U.S. Area Election Committee, which oversees the American portion of the WZC election, identified thousands of additional suspicious votes, eJewishPhilanthropy reported. The committee has not publicly identified the slate or slates that benefited from those votes, nor the process used to cast them.
An audit is likely to take place and delay the certification of the election results due to the percentage of ballots now either discarded or in dispute, per the eJewishPhilanthropy report. However, the American Zionist Movement, which administers the election, said the “irregular votes that we have identified represent only a small fraction of the total votes cast.”
The committee “is continuing its investigation into voting irregularities,” the AZM stated. The election committee’s “own internal monitoring that initially detected these issues, and through our ongoing investigation, additional irregular votes have been identified and isolated,” it said.
“We remain absolutely committed to upholding the integrity of the election and ensuring that no improper votes will be counted in the final results,” it added, noting that a record turnout is expected for the election.
As of April 15, nearly 124,000 votes had been cast with three weeks to go, already surpassing the 2020 vote total.
The 22 slates competing in the election were notified of the newest irregularities late last week, according to the eJewishPhilanthropy report.
“If there is indeed proof of voter fraud by any of the parties, not only must those votes be disqualified, but those parties must be sanctioned and penalized,” stated David Yaari, chair of the Kol Israel slate, per the report.
“Without penalty, it’s an incentive to continue fraud,” he said.
First campaign since the end of COVID
The election has major ramifications for the allocation of more than $1 billion of funding for Israel and world Jewry, and shaping Zionist institutions for the next few years.
The campaign for the Jewish people’s “parliament” is the first for the congress since the end of the COVID pandemic; the rise of internal Israeli political strife, including protests against judicial reform; and the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Many see it as a referendum on the Israeli government and Jewish organizational leadership.
The 22 U.S. organizations or groups, including nine new entities, running slates (candidate lists) in this year’s election are a record number. The more than 2,900 candidates from 43 U.S. states and territories on the ballot represent a significant increase from 2020, when 14 slates ran about 1,800 candidates.
Each slate will be assigned a proportion of congressional seats based on the percentage of the vote it earns. Unlike in Knesset elections, no minimum percentage threshold is required for a slate to secure a seat in the WZC.
U.S. voters, both on paper and online, will elect 152 delegates—about one-third of the 500 seats. The other 348 are allocated to Israel and the rest of the Diaspora.
‘Refer the matter and any perpetrators’
Earlier this month, the U.S. Area Election Committee identified approximately 1,900 suspicious votes, tied to two unnamed slates, reportedly emanating from yeshivahs, which were linked to randomly generated email addresses, prepaid credit cards or suspicious addresses.
The U.S. Area Election Committee rejected all of those votes, though it continues to investigate that matter and has not disqualified any slates as a result.
The committee’s chairs stated that, if appropriate, they would “refer the matter and any perpetrators to relevant law-enforcement authorities.”
An Israeli media outlet reported, separately, that high-ranking officials in the Conservative Judaism movement sought to recruit religious journalists to urge members of the Haredi community not to participate in the vote and funded posters to that effect in religious neighborhoods.
Leaked WhatsApp conversations and internal correspondence reportedly expose a plot by the Merkaz Olami organization to finance a poster campaign in Haredi communities.
Merkaz Olami, which represents the Conservative/Masorti Movement, declined to comment on the report. The group offered payments to secure rabbinic endorsements of the campaign, apparently aimed at the voting base of the Eretz HaKodesh slate, both in the United States and in Israel, according to the report.
The World Zionist Congress is the supreme organ of the World Zionist Organization, and elects its officers and decides on its policies.