High Court bars real-time turnout reports to parties

Israel’s High Court ruled on Thursday that parties may not receive real-time reports on how many people have voted at each polling station, adding a second restriction on how campaigns can use digital tools on election day.

The ruling bars polling station officials and party observers from sending live turnout counts from individual stations to party headquarters, even when the reports contain no names or other details that could identify voters. It follows a ruling last month that barred parties from receiving information about who had voted.

The dispute began on October 14, when Din Livneh, the acting director-general of the Central Elections Committee, issued a clarification in response to an inquiry from attorney Ilan Bombach, the Likud’s legal adviser. Livneh said it was permissible to count voters at each polling station and send the totals to parties digitally, as long as no personal information was collected. The committee’s view was that a simple headcount is different from information that reveals whether a specific person voted.

The Israel Democracy Institute challenged that permission in court. It argued that even anonymous data cannot be passed to parties without a basis in law, and that an administrative clarification from the committee is not enough.

At a hearing on Wednesday before Justices David Mintz, Khaled Kabub and Ruth Ronen, the justices questioned why parties needed their own station-by-station reports when the Elections Committee already publishes overall turnout figures throughout the day. Justice Kabub rejected the idea that this was merely a technical matter, noting the difference between official figures released by the committee and a constant stream of reports sent by party representatives across the country. He warned that parties could end up receiving thousands, or even tens of thousands, of reports. Justice Ronen asked why the information needed to go directly to political parties, and Justice Mintz noted that parties could use it to step up get-out-the-vote efforts in areas where they have strong support.

Voting at a polling station (Photo: Flash90)

Lawyers for the state and the Likud defended the permission. They argued that the reports could help monitor the fairness of the vote and flag problems keeping people from reaching polling stations, and that encouraging people to vote is a legitimate part of campaigning.

The case grew out of a broader fight over digital campaign tools. In what became known as the Elector affair, campaign apps were used to track which supporters had already voted in real time, allowing party headquarters to identify those who had not and push them to get to the polls.

In early August, Elections Committee chairman Justice Noam Solberg ruled that parties should not receive information on who had voted. The full committee later overturned his decision, but the High Court stepped in. On September 17, it ruled that the fact that a person has voted is personal information, and that polling station officials and observers may not pass it to parties without explicit authorization in law.

After that ruling, the Likud sought to draw a line between information about individual voters, which was now banned, and a simple count of how many people had voted, which contains no personal details. The Elections Committee’s October clarification allowed the count. Thursday’s ruling has now banned that too.

In practice, parties will no longer be able to track turnout in real time through their own representatives at polling stations. Instead, they will have to rely on the official turnout figures published by the Central Elections Committee throughout election day.