With the request to extend the vote denied, I think it’s actually quite a bit less than that.
Who officially denied it? What was their motivation?
The president of the voting commission, and he denied it because the governing coalition (who put in the request) didn’t give a good enough reason for the extension request.
He did approve a local extension in Hebron because of a power outage.
In Israel, the judiciary runs the elections, and the National Election Committee is headed by a Supreme Court justice.
Does this mean that the lack of delay is bad for Bibi?
I guess it means that he thinks so? I don’t know that anyone knows if a delay would really be helpful or not helpful to any given side.
I wonder if making the request and being denied IS the goal.
Not that it’s my business but I think that they should let anyone in line at the time in question should be allowed to cast their ballot. Couldn’t a bunch of people who are (to use US terms) Blue in a Red district intentionally go very slow to disenfranchise some of the people behind them?
That’s already the case, this was about extending the time when you could get in line.
Ah. Thank you for the clarification. That’s actually a reasonable way to do it.
Probably. There has been a surprisingly large turnout of voters in the various cities around Israel where the population is 100 per cent Arab. Arabs are a voting block very, very unlikely to vote for BIbi.
There has been a slight drop in voter turnout in certain areas where the majority of voters support Bibi’s party and its fanatic right-wing satellite parties. They are in panic mode trying to get the vote out.
As for the time extension: Anyone standing in line at10 pm will be allowed to vote, even after the 10pm closing time.
Also: Election day is a national holiday in Israel, so most people do not work. The polls are open all day, from 8 in the morning till 10 at night. The vast majority of people live within walking distance of their polling place. Unlike America, voting is easy. Anybody who wants to vote can do so.
This sounds like Bibi’s strategy.
He is copying Trump’s playbook. If he loses, scream “the election was was rigged”.
If the election doesn’t go his way, will he publicly accept the results?
He’s already laying the groundwork for this, yes.
Fortunately, Israel’s courts seem pretty fucking done with Bibi’s bullshit.
And the polls should be just about closed.
Eisenkot agrees with you.
Well, Bibi lost. We’re not sure if anyone won.
Maybe—but we won’t really know for another 2 months. Bibi is still the largest party, and the split between the two blocks is minimal–52 for the anti-Bibi and 50 for Bibi.
These numbers are very very preliminary…based on exit polls from 1 per cent of the voting stations.
From very early exit polling, it looks like Bibi will have about 50 representatives, the Opposition parties will have about 52-53, the Arab parties have about 17, the Orthodox have about 13, and the Religious Zionists have about 12 (depending on whether both parties hit the minimum vote requirement).
Much of the turnout appears to have been driven by higher than usual numbers in Arab communities.
Likud is the single largest party but that’s because the Netanyahu block has two parties while the Opposition block has three.
Is there any chance of the Arab parties getting into the governing coalition?
Ra’am joined the governing coalition with Bennet and Lapid in 2021 but they had to break with the Joint List to do it.