Likud defends its cameras: ‘The problem is in the Arab community’

A Likud campaign officials defends the party’s deployment of hidden cameras at polling stations in Arab towns, saying the “problem is in the behavior of those people in the Arab community,” not in Likud’s measures “to ensure a fair vote.”

After police and ballot officials discovered hidden cameras at hundreds of polling stations, the Central Elections Committee on Tuesday said it was illegal to film voters and the voter lists at the ballot stations, and that only police and committee officials were allowed to examine footage obtained from the stations.

Attorney Koby Matza, who represents the Likud party, insists the cameras deployed to polling stations in Arab towns “weren’t hidden, but were visible, and were placed in the community where there is a significant concern about fraud.”

The comment contradicts police officials who said the cameras were small and hidden in the shirts of some 1,200 observers deployed by Likud to Arab-majority areas.

“The cameras were intended to ensure a fair vote,” Matza says. “The problem is in the behavior of those people in the Arab community. I’m getting reports from polling stations all over the country where our representatives, of Likud especially, are kicked out of the polling stations in the Arab sector.”