It takes 250 tons of paper to run an Israeli election. That’s what went into the 450 million ballot slips printed for Tuesday’s vote for the 26th Knesset, 11.5 million for every party on the ballot.
The Central Elections Committee released the figures Sunday morning. They show how big an operation sits behind the few seconds it takes each voter to drop an envelope in a box.
There are 7,331,981 Israelis eligible to vote this time. Waiting for them are 12,018 polling stations and 18,000 ballot boxes, spread from the Galilee to Eilat. More than half the stations, 6,209 of them, are accessible to voters with disabilities.
Getting there is free. On election day, 660 intercity bus routes and every Israel Railways line will run without charge.
Then there’s the workforce. Between elections, the committee runs on about 40 employees. During the campaign that grows to 1,200. On election day it hits roughly 100,000, nearly all of them temporary. Some 50,000 people sat through about 2,140 training classes to get ready, and 15,000 cameras are on hand for election-integrity monitors.
The price tag is NIS 690 million. When the last vote is counted, more than 400 tons of paper and cardboard will be sent off for recycling.
The day itself is shaping up to be tense. Elections Committee chairman Justice Noam Solberg recently convened an urgent hearing over a petition against a meeting between the prime minister, the national security minister and the police commissioner on election integrity. The High Court also ruled this month that polling-station staff may not report turnout in real time. That means the parties will spend Tuesday flying blind, without live data on who is turning out to vote.
