New Right's vote recount request approved

Arutz Sheva ^ | 14/4/19 | David Rosenberg

[Eleutheria5]

The New Right party of Education Minister Naftali Bennett and Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked will conduct a partial vote recount following last Tuesday’s election, after receiving approval from the Central Elections Committee Sunday evening.

Judge Hanan Melcer, the chairman of the Central Elections Committee, green lighted a request by the New Right to conduct a recount of votes in 300 ballot boxes which were used for special votes – the double-enveloped ballots cast by Israeli citizens unable to vote at the ballot nearest to their home. These voters include voters who were hospitalized during the election, soldiers stationed at bases across the country, prisoners being held in correctional facilities, foreign service officials working overseas, and disabled voters unable to reach the polls.

Despite polls showing the New Right entering the Knesset with five to six seats, the party narrowly missed the electoral threshold in the initial vote count.

The Central Elections Committee has been correcting errors in the uploading of data into the system, which produced a number of irregularities in the turnout rate for certain towns, as well as votes for one party mistakenly credited to another party.

Nevertheless, as of Sunday evening, the New Right is still 1,344 votes short of the 139,898 votes required to enter the Knesset, out of a total of 4,308,446 valid ballots cast.

The New Right has claimed, however, that it has received reports of some hundreds of irregularities in the counting of votes, particularly with regards to the special double-enveloped ballots.

The party had hoped last week that the soldiers’ votes would put the New Right over the top.

Earlier on Sunday, the Central Elections Committee pushed back on the New Right’s allegations of widespread irregularities, calling the claim a “misrepresentation”.

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[Eleutheria5]

Election Committee checking 300 polling places challenged by New Right

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/Flash.aspx/454547

[Eleutheria5]

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/Flash.aspx/454547

[BobL]

Are these guys conservative, and it they do get a few seats, who loses.

[jjotto]

They are to the right of Netanyahu. Likely would be at the expense of Likud or right parties.

Includes rising stars Ayelet Shaked and Naftali Bennett. They’d be better in government than Avigdor Liberman.

An extra 1400 votes wouldn’t seem very likely.

[Eleutheria5]

1. Yes. 2. Likud loses unchallenged hegemony over the Right, and Israel gets an important voice within the Right to resist such evils as self-destructive land concessions and ineffective strategies to Ghazan provocations. 3. Bear in mind that in a parliamentary democracy such as Israel, minor parties are important.

[PlateOfShrimp]

Was their decision to leave Jewish Home as bad a miscalculation as it looks like from this side of the pond?

[Eleutheria5]

I think so. Bennett wanted to be Defense Minister, and Bibi refused to give him the portfolio, so he left the Government along with several others, and Bennett formed this new party, refusing to be part of the United Right Party, because he wanted to be inclusive of secular rightists, and United only appealed to religious rightists. I 100% respect that, and it remains to be seen if he is entitled to four Knesset seats. I hope that New Right gets in. It should get in. It was meant to, except that a “glitch” was “discovered” depriving New Right of just enough votes to make the threshold. It sounds like illicit hanky panky to me, and good on Bennett for demanding and getting a re-count.