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Israel

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Israel elects its national legislature, the Knesset, by proportional representation on a national list basis. The Knesset has 120 members, elected for terms of four years. However, most of the elections in the country's history were not held on their scheduled date but after less than 4 years (only one of the last 8 Knesset assemblies completed its full term). Early elections can be called by a vote of the majority of Knesset members, or by an edict of the President, and normally occur on occasions of political stalemate and inability of the government to get the parliament's support for its policy. Failure to get the annual budget bill approved by the Knesset by March 31st (3 months after the start of the fiscal year) also leads automatically to early elections.

The Israeli electoral system has an electoral threshold of 2%, making it more favourable to minor parties than systems used in other countries. Israel has a multi-party system and generally no one party is able to form a government, requiring the parties to form coalition governments. In 1992, Israel adopted a system of direct election of the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister was directly elected separately from the Knesset in 1996, 1999 and 2001. The direct election of the Prime Minister was abandoned after the 2001 election, because it didn't produce more stable governments (the 2001 elections were held less than 2 years after the previous one), and led to further fragmentation of the parliament.

Israel also has a President, but his/her role is essentially a figurehead position, with the real governmental power being in the hands of the Prime Minister.

Every Israeli of age 18 or greater may vote in elections. Any Israeli citizen over 21 may be elected to the Knesset, except holders of several high positions in the civil service and officers or career soldiers (those should resign from their post before the elections), soldiers in compulsory service, and felons who were convicted and sentenced to prison terms exceeding 3 months (until 7 years after their prison term expired).

Contents 1 Voting method 1.1 The ballot letters 1.1.1 Current ballot letters 1.1.2 Historical ballot letters 2 Latest elections 3 Past elections 4 See also 5 External links

Whilst most countries operating a manual (i.e. paper) voting system use a sheet on which a voter either marks a box for one candidate, or ranks them by number, Israel has a rather unusual balloting method. Upon entry to a polling station, the voter is given an official envelope, and shown to a voting booth. Inside the booth is a tray of ballot papers, one for each party. The voter chooses the relevant paper for their party, put it in the envelope, seals it, and then places the envelope into the ballot box.

The ballot papers contain minimal information - they are dominated by the "ballot letter(s)" of the party (between one and three letters), with the party name and sometimes a slogan written underneath in small text (see the picture to the right). Each party publicises their letter prior to election day, with most election posters featuring them. As many political parties in Israel are known by their acronyms, several parties can spell out their name in two or three letter, and thus use their name as their ballot letters (e.g. Meretz and Hetz). Others spell out a specific phrase on their ballot.

Ballots are produced in both Arabic and Hebrew, and are distributed appropriately; a voting booth in virtually all-Jewish towns would probably only have Hebrew slips, booths in all-Arab towns would have all Arabic slips, and those in mixed cities such as Haifa would have both. Parties use the equivalent letters in both languages; for instance Kadima use כן (Kaph-Nun) in Hebrew and ﻥﻙ (also Kaph-Nun) in Arabic. Although there are around one million Russian speakers in the country, almost the same number as Arabic speakers, there have not as yet been any Cyrillic ballot papers.

The system has the advantage of being incredibly simple to use for those with limited literacy. This is especially important in Israel where many new immigrants struggle with the language, especially reading and writing (as Hebrew uses a unique different alphabet), and there are also relatively high illiteracy rates amongst the Bedouin.

The following (Hebrew) ballot letters were used in the 2006 election:

Party	Ballot letters	Notes	Party	Ballot letters	Notes
Ale Yarok	קנ		Lekhem	ז
Arab National Party	קפ		Lev	פז	"Gold"
Atid Ekhad	זה		Lider	ף
Balad	ד		Likud	מחל	"To forgive"
Brit Olam	ה		Meretz-Yachad	מרצ	Party name
Gil	זך	"Pure"	National Union-NRP	טב	"Good" (with Niqqud)
Green Party	רק	"Only"	New Zionism	צה
Hadash	ו		Organization for Democratic Action	ק
HaLev	פץ		Oz LaAniyim	פכ
Herut – The National Movement	נץ	"Hawk"	Shas	שס	Party name
Hetz	חץ	Party name	Shinui	יש	"There is"/"Yeah!"
Israel Beytenu	ל	L for Lieberman	Tafnit	פ
Jewish National Front	כ		Tzomet	כץ
Justice for All	קז		United Arab List-Ta'al	עם	"People"/"Nation"
Kadima	כן	"Yes"	United Torah Judaism	ג
Labor	אמת	"Truth"

The following ballot letters were used by historical parties:

Party	Ballot letters	Notes	Party	Ballot letters	Notes
Mapai	א	"A"/"One"	Rafi	כא

Main article: Israeli legislative election, 2006

[discuss] – [edit]
Summary of the 28 March 2006 Knesset of Israel election results

Parties	Votes	%	Seats	+/-
Kadima 1	690,901	22.02%	29	new
Labour-Meimad 2	472,366	15.06%	19	-2
Shas	299,054	9.53%	12	+1
Likud 3	281,996	8.989%	12	-15
Israel Beytenu 4	281,880	8.985%	11	+8
National Union - National Religious Party 5 National Union Moledet Tkuma Renewed Religious National Zionist party National Religious Party	224,083	7.14%	9	-1
Gil	185,759	5.92%	7	new
United Torah Judaism Agudat Israel Degel HaTorah	147,091	4.69%	6	+1
Meretz-Yachad	118,302	3.77%	5	-1
Ra'am-Ta'al	94,786	3.02%	4	+2
Hadash	86,092	2.74%	3	0
Balad	72,066	2.30%	3	0
Green Party	47,595	1.52%	0	0
Ale Yarok	40,353	1.29%	0	0
Jewish National Front	24,824	0.79%	0	0
Tafnit	18,753	0.60%	0	0
Hetz 6	10,113	0.33%	0	new
Shinui 7	4,675	0.16%	0	-15
Other parties	36,375	1.16%	0	0
Total	3,137,064	100%	120
Eligible voters: 5,014,622 Total votes cast: 3,186,739 (Turnout 63.6%) Spoiled ballots: 49,675 (1.56% of votes cast) Valid ballots: 3,137,064 Threshold (2%): 62,741 Votes per seat: 24,620
1 14 Knesset members joined Kadima in November 2005, 13 of them from Likud. 2 One Nation (3 Knesset members) merged with Labour (19 Knesset members) in 2004. 3 Israel Ba-Aliya (2 Knesset members) merged with Likud (38 Knesset members) in 2003, 13 MKs split and joined Kadima in 2005. 4 Israel Beytenu (3 Knesset members) split from the National Union (7 Knesset members) in 2003. 5 National Religious Party (6 Knesset members) joined the National Union (4 Knesset members after the split 4) prior to the election. 6 9 Knesset members split from Shinui and joined Hetz prior to the elections. 7 Only 2 Knesset members were left from the original faction after the split6 prior to the elections.

Israeli parliamentary elections v • d • e

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Israeli prime ministerial elections

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• Election
• Electoral calendar

• Elections results on the official Knesset website (in English)
• Adam Carr's election archive