Arab Turnout Hits 80% in Israel's 26th Knesset Election

Arab citizens of Israel voted at a record rate of 80% in Tuesday's election for the 26th Knesset. That put Arab-sector turnout above the final national figure of 77.7%, released Tuesday night by the Central Elections Committee that runs the vote.

The national rate was the highest in Israel since 1999 and 7.1 percentage points above the 2022 election, with a total of 5,695,682 people casting ballots.

Arab voters turned out at a higher rate than the electorate as a whole. As JFeed reported on Tuesday night, political analyst Amit Segal noted the milestone: "Ladies and gentlemen, for the first time in history it appears Arabs voted at a higher rate than Jews."

The sharpest rise came in Umm al-Fahm. Ynet reported that turnout there stood at 70.1% by 8 p.m., up from 38.3% for the whole of the 2022 election. The outlet pointed to one possible reason: Joint List chairman Yousef Jabareen lives in the city.

Other Arab cities also posted large gains by 8 p.m. compared with 2022. Sakhnin reached 83.5%, up from 68.4%. Kafr Qasim rose to 81.3% from 66.88%, and Rahat to 79.8% from 60.6%. Tayibe stood at 74.3% against 57.7%, Shefa-Amr at 72.5% against 51.5%, and Nazareth at 70% against 48.3%.

Turnout in several Bedouin communities was higher still. By 8 p.m., it reached 87.3% in Bir Hadaj, 85.2% in the Abu Qrenat tribal community and 87.9% in Dmeideh in the Galilee, Ynet reported. In Rahat, 61% had voted by 5 p.m., the same level the city recorded for the entire previous election day.

Netanyahu today (Photo: Flash90 - Yonatan Sindel)

The high turnout drew complaints from Likud. On Tuesday, the party said it had filed 775 complaints with the Central Elections Committee over alleged misconduct and attempted fraud at Arab-sector polling stations. Sagi Keizler, Likud's election integrity overseer, said the committee "prefers a high voter turnout over ensuring that the voting process is conducted properly, in accordance with all laws and procedures."

The committee said its election integrity monitoring system operated at every polling station throughout the day. Of roughly 10,000 reports it received, about 2,000 were ruled out at once as integrity incidents, and most of the rest proved unrelated to election integrity. The committee stated that all incidents had been addressed and closed.