Yom Shleeshee
Tuesday
6 Cheshvan 5783
November 1 2022
The OneIsrael blog today will be “ongoing” and devoted to election news. Hopefully, by midnight we will have some idea about what the final result will be, although the official results will not be available until Thursday.
UPDATE 5 (Final Update
10:00 PM
The polls are closed and all of the major media is posting “results” based on exit polls. Here are the numbers:
Channel 14 Channel 13, Channel 12, Channel 11
31 30 31 30 Likud: Netanyahu
23 22 24 24 Yesh Atid: Lapid
12 15 14 14 National Zionist (Otzma): Ben Gvir
11 13 12 11 State Unity Camp: Gantz
10 10 10 10 Shas: Sephardic Orthodox
8 7 7 7 Torah Judaism: Ashkenazi Orthodox
6 5 5 4 Yisrael Beiteinu: Liberman
9 5 5 6 Labor: Michaeli
4 4 4 4 Tal Hadash: Old Joint Arab List
5 4 4 5 Meretz: Galon
4 5 4 5 Raam: Islamic Party
Channel 11 Netanyahu bloc 62 Lapid bloc 54
Channel 12 Netanyahu bloc 61 Lapid bloc 55
Channel 13 Netanyahu bloc 62 Lapid bloc 54
Channel 14 Netanyahu bloc 61 Lapid bloc 69
It’s too early celebrate, but the exit polls look good. We will have more news tomorrow.
UPDATE 4
5:00 pm (5 more hours until the polls close)
Voter turnout stood at 47.5% as of 4 pm. That’s about 5.2% more at 4 pm than in the last election in 2021. It’s unclear which party this turnout favors since all parties have been beating the bushes for voters.
UPDATE 3
2:00 pm (one hour earlier than expected)
On the news front.
*By 12:00, 28,4% of Israelis eligible to vote had voted. This is the heaviest turnout by that hour since 1999. Voting in the Israeli-Arab areas is up by about 2%.
Your humble servant and his wife voted at 12:30 at our polling place, the Ofek Elementary School just up the hill from our house here in Ashdod. Unlike in the U.S. where campaigning is prohibited within 100 feet of the polling place, here in Israel there is campaigning galore with signage and booths forming a gauntlet that one must pass through to get inside.
Here are the photos that I took on the way in:
The campaign banner for United Torah Judaism (the Ashkenazi Orthodox Party).
And:
For the Labor Party led by Merav Michaeli.
And:
Yair Lapid/Yesh Atid.
And:
A slightly crumpled Benny Gantz of the United Camp Party.
And:
The Shas table.
And:
A zillion Netanyahu signs along with Ben Gvir.
And on and on. Finally, we entered the school:
Some of our children went to school at Ofek. Various neighborhoods voted in specific classrooms. Lots of people were voting.
And finally, your humble servant voted as well:
Regular readers of OneIsrael know exactly how I voted.
UPDATE 2
11:00 AM
Three photos this morning:
Soldiers voting in the north this morning. Contrary to what you might believe, soldiers tend to vote to the center and left.
The most unusual voting place today:
Divers at Eilat’s underwater observatory voting with the sharks!
The possible star of this election period, Itamar Ben Gvir showing that he is voting for his own party, Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) this morning.
Ben Gvir is, hopefully, riding a wave of momentum.
Voting irregularities:
*Otzma Yehudit reports that at numerous IDF polling places, there were no paper ballots for Otzma Yehudit making it impossible for soldiers to vote for it.
*A fiasco with Likud ballots. Apparently some 5.5 million incorrectly worded Likud ballots were sent out to possible voters. Another batch has gone out, but Likud fears that the incorrect ballots may be used and has made an emergency petition to the election commission to accept both ballots–should some use the incorrect ones. As you may not know, many people go to the voting booth with their ballot in hand, or get one outside the door of the polling place.
An observation:
As much as we dislike PM Lapid, it must be said that his campaign manager has done a fabulous job. Lapid signs now far outnumber the signs of other candidates including huge ones up and down the freeways and on buildings throughout Israel. More than this, Lapid has good photo ops everyday–much more than any other candidate except for Ben Gvir. Of course, in the photo ops area, Lapid is helped immeasurably by the left-wing Israeli media.
The next update will be at 3:00 pm Israel time.
UPDATE 1
6:45 AM
The polls do not open here until 7 am. Already, there are people standing in line at the polling place nearest our home in Ashdod–one of 11,707 polling stations in the country to handle 6,788,804 eligible voters.
What the “ballots” look like. Each party has been assigned a Hebrew letter, or group of letters. You take the piece of paper of the party you want to vote for, put it into a blue envelope, seal it, and then put it into the voting box (see below).
The most common voting places are at schools such as this one which is readying to open at this moment:
The people at the table check your Israeli ID when you enter the room and give you a blue envelope. After you vote, you put the envelope in the blue box.
To begin with today, your humble servant is going to give you two forecasts: the first is “how I hope it turns out”, the second is “what I think will happen”:
The “Best I Can Wish For” Prediction
32: Likud (Netanyahu)
25: Yesh Atid (Lapid)
16: National Zionism and Otzma (Smotrich and Ben Gvir)
10: National Unity Camp (Gantz/Saar/Eizenkot)
9: Shas (Sephardic Orthodox)
7: United Torah Judaism (Ashkenazi Orthodox)
5: Yisrael Beiteinu (Liberman)
4: Meretz (Gal-On)
4: Labor (Michaeli)
4: Hadash Tal (the former Joint Arab List)
4: Ra’am Islamic Party (Abbas)
0: Beit Yehudi (Shaked)
Of course, I actually hope that Meretz, Labor, Hadash Tal, and Ra’am do not pass the threshold and receive no seats, and that Beit Yehudi passes the 3.25% threshold and receives 4 seats– but I think the above is the best I can wish for. If the above actually happens, the result would be: Netanyahu bloc: 64 Lapid bloc: 52 Hadash Tal: 4
In this “wish list” scenario, Netanyahu forms a government.
The “Most Probable”: Prediction
30: Likud (Netanyahu)
26: Yesh Atid (Lapid)
15: National Zionism and Otzma (Smotrich and Ben Gvir)
12: National Unity Camp (Gantz/Saar/Eizenkot)
9: Shas (Sephardic Orthodox)
6: United Torah Judaism (Ashkenazi Orthodox)
6: Yisrael Beiteinu (Liberman)
4: Labor (Michaeli)
4: Meretz (Gal-On)
4: Hadash Tal (the former Joint Arab List)
4: Ra’am Islamic Party (Abbas)
0: Beit Yehudi (Shaked)
In this “most likely” scenario: Netanyahu bloc: 60 Lapid bloc: 56 Hadash-Tal: 4 In this scenario, neither side has enough seats to form a coalition. In any case, the most important factor will be voter turnout–especially voter turnout among Israeli-Arabs. Another factor will be vote integrity. The Israeli-Arab voting districts have a funny way of counting their votes last, often just producing what is needed for a particular leader. Let’s hope there is no fraud this time around. The next update will be at 11 am Israel time.
A student from Malawi, who had worked with an Israeli health volunteer in his country battling AIDS, came up to us as we walked down the street in the UC-Davis Picnic Day Parade and wanted to carry the Israeli flag.