Counting in Israel’s Knesset election is continuing. On Thursday morning, the Central Elections Committee released an updated tally based on about 91% of the votes cast at regular polling stations.
The new figures show a shift within the Arab parties. Ra’am gained one seat and now stands at eight, at the expense of the Joint List, which dropped to 11. The overall balance between the blocs remains unchanged.
Double-envelope count begins
The committee also announced that counting of the double-envelope ballots began at 1 a.m., once the required intake, scanning and verification were complete.
As part of the process, the inner ballot envelopes are removed from the outer envelopes and mixed together. This fully separates each voter’s details from the vote they cast, preserving ballot secrecy as required by law. The ballots are then taken for counting at a special facility set up in the Knesset parking lot.
More than 5 million votes counted
Results from regular polling stations are still being processed in parallel. As of 1 a.m., results had been entered from 11,712 of the country’s 12,018 regular polling stations, covering 5,126,759 voters. The remaining stations are going through standard verification.
The committee stressed that the figures are partial and not final, and may still change as counting, data processing and verification continue.
