Record Israeli Turnout, and a Fight Over Closing Time
Two-thirds of Israel’s electorate had voted by six o’clock this evening, 66.7%, the highest since such things were first measured in the early 1970s. The prime minister’s party and its coalition partners have asked the electoral authorities to keep polls open past ten; the opposition says that is groundwork for challenging the result.
Polls close at eight this evening by our clock, so nothing here is a result and no projection appears in this edition. The electoral committee’s own figure was almost 45% by two in the afternoon, six points above the same hour in 2022; official hourly updates put it at 66.7% by six, a nine-point increase. In Nazareth, the largest Palestinian-majority town in Israel, turnout passed 32% by two o’clock against 28% four years ago, still below the national Jewish average but rising; the prime minister spent the day posting about high Arab turnout. The extension request is the live dispute, with the committee convening to rule on it and several complaints already filed by parties in the anti-Netanyahu bloc, though the committee says there is no evidence of systematic tampering with ballot slips. The echo is uncomfortable and worth naming: in Brazil on Sunday the losing candidate’s stated ground for seeking annulment was a judge’s decision to extend voting by two hours. Broadcasters publish exit polls when voting ends, and those can move a long way before a count settles.