Official election results: Likud gains another seat
The Central Election Committee (CEC) on Tuesday night announced that the election results changed slightly following their investigation into election fraud at several ballots. Under the amended results, the Likud gained its 32ed seat at the expense of United Torah Judaism (UTJ), which will have seven seats in the upcoming Knesset.
The Knesset’s Central Election Committee (CEC), headed by Justice Hanan Melcer (R), in a special discussion about the request to disqualify Otzma Yehudit party from participation in the coming elections for the 22nd Knesset. Jerusalem, Aug 14, 2019. Photo by Esty Dziubov/TPS
The last-minute amendment may help Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of the Likud in his negotiations with Blue and White, which now only leads by one seat. However, the change is not expected to make the forming of a coalition significantly easier, as the Likud and UTJ come from the same right-wing political bloc, which still lacks the 60 necessary seats for a government.
The CEC explained in its announcement that all results published up to this point were pending the results of election fraud investigation, which have now been concluded.
The CEC’s investigation found attempted fraud at six ballots, three of which were at the Druze village of Yarka, and one in each of the Arab towns of Sakhnin, Shfar’am and Arraba. Judge Hanan Melcer, head of the CEC, has decided not to count the votes at these ballots.
In Yarka and Sakhnin the Police shut down several polling stations during Election Day, following reports of severe election fraud. In several other polling stations, the CEC’s investigators were able to single out fraudulent votes and disqualify them, rather than the entire ballot.
The corrections in the results were also based on anomalies and counting errors found in the CEC’s investigations.
Similar fraud allegations have been made in the April elections. In the previous round, the CEC disqualified only one ballot box in the Arab town of Kisra-Sumei, despite dozens of fraud allegations.
In the days leading up to the September elections, politicians fiercely debated possible ways to combat election fraud. The Likud attempted to pass a bill that would allow observers to film at the ballots. The bill failed to pass, and filming at the polling stations was forbidden.
The CEC established a monitoring program, which sampled voting booths around the country and filmed only in cases of suspicious activity. The visual documentation of the counting of votes at the end of the day was also permitted.
Police shut down two polling places on election day. What happened to voters who wanted to vote that day after the shut down? A poling place should not be shut down by police either unless there is danger.