Israel prints 450 million ballots for Knesset election

The Central Elections Committee marked a major milestone Monday in preparations for the 26th Knesset election, launching the printing operation for the ballot papers that will be used by Israeli voters.

Committee chairman Justice Noam Solberg and acting director-general Adv. Din Livneh toured the Orda printing plant in Kiryat Gat to observe the printing lines in operation.

The operation will produce approximately 450 million ballot papers for the country's 7.3 million eligible voters. Each party list running for the 26th Knesset will have 11.5 million copies printed, to be distributed across 12,018 polling stations nationwide.

The Orda plant in Kiryat Gat, Israel's largest printing facility, is operating at heightened capacity to meet the strict timeline. Because of the massive scale of the work, the printing runs around the clock in shifts covering 24 hours a day, six days a week, until election day.

"These ballots from here will be transported to 12,018 polling stations across the country," Justice Solberg said during the tour. "We have 7,336,553 eligible voters. We ordered, as the law requires, the number of eligible voters plus 30% that the law mandates, and even more so that we will be fully prepared."

The committee chairman added: "The Elections Committee in all its branches is very much immersed in the work of doing it, and we hope that this day will indeed be a successful election celebration."

The Central Elections Committee also emphasized the environmental aspect of the operation: in line with the committee's existing policy, more than 400 tons of paper and cardboard will be sent for recycling at the conclusion of the election campaign.