Israeli elections begin Wednesday — everywhere but Israel

The vast majority of Israel’s 6.3 million eligible voters will have to wait until April 9 before they can cast their ballot, but for some 5,000 Israeli diplomats stationed in 96 embassies and consulates around the globe, elections start late Wednesday, Israeli time, and will continue till Friday morning.

From Amman to El Salvador to Ghana, a total of 5,137 Israelis will be able to vote in 77 countries. Each polling station is open from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. local time.

Israeli representatives at the consulate in Wellington, New Zealand, will be the first to vote, with ambassador Itzhak Gerberg expected to cast the first ballot. On the other side of the international dateline, the Israeli mission in San Francisco will be the last to close voting, some 36 hours later.

While the average number of ballots from an embassy or a consulate is about 40, the number of eligible voters actually varies wildly based on the size of the mission in each country. The consulate in New York, for example, the largest, has a record 750 eligible voters this year.

According to Israeli law, private citizens living abroad cannot vote unless they come to Israel. But the exception made for diplomats also applies to emissaries sent abroad by the Jewish Agency, Keren Kayemet, Keren Hayesod and the World Zionist Organization. In addition, their spouses and children (aged 18-20) can also cast a ballot abroad.

“We are talking about a very complicated process, but everything is done to ensure both an easy process for voters around the world and complete transparency,” said veteran Israeli ambassador Yizhak Bachman, who currently serves as chair of the Foreign Ministry’s election committee.

In Israel, the head of the Central Elections Committee, Supreme Court Justice Hanan Melcer, will oversee the process on Thursday from the “election situation room” in the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem.

“The entire operation is done extremely carefully and to the exact letter of the law, all over the world,” Bachman said.

To manage the vote, every embassy has a mini-election committee of sorts, which usually consists of the consul and another high-ranking official, preferably not from the Foreign Ministry but rather a military or cultural attaché. Every voter enters the voting booth and places their ballot in a sealed envelope. They then exit the booth and the envelope is placed in a second envelope with the voter’s name and identity number on it.

At the end of the process, all envelopes are sent to Jerusalem, where they are guarded in a safe until Election Day. Members of the Knesset’s election committee will then look at the names on the envelopes and check back with the polling stations where the citizen is registered to ensure they haven’t voted twice.

The first sealed envelope containing the voting slip is then placed in a special ballot box, together with all the other envelopes from abroad. After the polls close in Israel and the counting starts, the diplomats’ box will be counted as well.

Final results in the national ballot are expect to trickle in overnight on April 9.

Raphael Ahren contributed to this report.