30,000 Americans in Israel voted in Midterm elections

Voter-assistance group reports that 18% of eligible US voters in country cast their absentee ballots

By JTA 7 November 2014, 9:22 pm

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iVoteIsrael volunteers sign up US citizens for absentee ballots at a mall in Jerusalem in June 2012 (photo credit: courtesy of iVoteIsrael.com)

Expatriate Americans in Israel voting in the midterm US congressional elections numbered 30,000, or 18 percent of those eligible to vote, according to a group that encourages such voting.

Matt Solomon, the director of iVoteIsrael, said Israel leads other countries by far in turnout of US citizens living there.

In previous non-presidential elections, turnout among American expatriates around the world was 1 percent, Solomon said in a release Thursday, two days after the election, and it is 5 percent in presidential election years.

In 2012, a presidential year, there were 80,000 Americans in Israel who voted, or 50 percent of those eligible, he said, constituting 25 percent of all American expatriates who voted that year.

“This connection between countries demonstrates the breadth of the unique relationship between the two countries,” he said.