Report: Source close to Netanyahu admits lawmakers were told to record state comptroller votes

Channel 13 reveals a recording of an individual close to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu admitting that lawmakers were instructed to record their votes in the contentious election of the state comptroller.

“What do you mean? Everyone recorded themselves in Likud, that’s the only way we won. Very simple,” the individual says in the recording, which has been manipulated so as not to reveal their identity.

The person they are speaking to replies: “Everyone says ‘there is no directive,'” to which the source responds: “It’s a lie, there was a directive.”

Lawmakers voted 61-57 on Wednesday to elect Netanyahu’s personal lawyer, Michael Rabello, as state comptroller in a controversial do-over vote marred by accusations that illegal pressure tainted the election.

The eventual win came after the second round of voting was halted and rerun amid allegations that Likud lawmakers were pressured and ordered to photograph — and even film — their ballots to prove they had voted for Rabello and not “betrayed” Netanyahu, despite the law requiring a secret ballot.

A Likud lawmaker claimed yesterday that they had filmed the vote of their own “free choice.”