Likud to appeal election results over alleged illegal voter tracking by Arab parties

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud is preparing to appeal the results of the recent election — either in part or in whole — based on allegations that Arab political parties used electronic means of tracking voters to boost turnout in a manner banned by the High Court of Justice just before the election, the party’s lawyer told The Times of Israel on Saturday.

Netanyahu and other outgoing coalition members have repeatedly claimed that the October 27 elections were “stolen” by Arab parties, citing claims of bribery, intimidation, forgery and other irregularities following record Arab turnout that helped deprive the premier’s bloc of a parliamentary majority.

Likud party lawyer Ilan Bombach told The Times of Israel that Likud polling station observers filed 700 complaints on election day about Arab party activists using a smartphone app to track voter turnout, asserting that each complaint affected “hundreds or thousands of votes.”

Since the High Court barred the practice, this gave the Arab parties an unfair advantage, Bombach maintained. The Likud lawyer said it has yet to be decided whether the appeal will challenge the entire election result or be more narrowly focused.

The complaint will be filed with the Jerusalem District Court, though likely not before November 17, the last day such appeals can be filed.

An organization called the Civilian Election Guard, which sent volunteer observers to polling stations on election day, reported on 374 instances of apparently illegal use of apps to track voter turnout.

However, the group said that the largest number of such violations was by Likud activists and polling station workers, who comprised 32 percent of all such incidents, followed by United Torah Judaism with 10%, Shas with 6%, Ra’am with 2%, and the Joint List with 1%.

When the High Court banned the use of such apps ten days before the election, Likud ministers reacted furiously to the decision. The Likud and ultra-Orthodox parties in particular have made extensive use of this data to boost their voter turnout in recent election cycles, and the Likud party lawyers argued in court that their election day operations would be severely harmed if this practice were banned.

Bombach said the planned appeal may also cover the two ongoing investigations into electoral fraud currently being investigated by law enforcement agencies, depending on what findings are released by that date.

Channel 12 reported Friday that the two election interference investigations into the allegations were falling apart.

The first case, in which three Bedouin activists were arrested on the morning of the elections for allegedly trying to bribe voters to back the Ra’am party, is reportedly expected to be closed unless new evidence is uncovered. The suspects in the case have been released.

The second case, involving an alleged foreign funding effort to back the Joint List, is also turning out to be very different from what was initially described. While initial media reports alleged Qatar’s involvement, none of the intelligence material the Shin Bet security service provided to the police mentions the Gulf state, the network reported.

Instead, the money involved was believed to come from the West Bank, and it was not yet clear who was behind those funds, Channel 12 said.

Likud and other outgoing coalition parties sought in vain to delay Wednesday’s official certification and presentation of the official election results to President Isaac Herzog, citing the ongoing probes. The head of the Central Election Committee, Noam Solberg, said that the allegations being probed, even if found to be accurate, were not of a scale that could affect the results, and decried the stigmatization of Arab voters.

With the Central Election Committee having confirmed the results, they were handed to Herzog, who then began consultations with party representatives to receive their proposals on who should get the first chance at trying to form a government.

In the end, 67 MKs backed the Yashar opposition party leader Gadi Eisenkot, while just 46 recommended Netanyahu. The seven-seat United Torah Judaism declined to recommend anyone, breaking from its long-time support of Netanyahu.

Herzog announced on Saturday night that he would task Eisenkot on Sunday with trying to form a government.