Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud on Tuesday filed a formal request with the Central Elections Committee, which publishes turnout figures throughout election day, to keep polling stations open an extra hour in Israel's Knesset elections, The Jerusalem Post reported. The party gave no reason for the request.
The chareidi party Shas and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir's Otzma Yehudit joined the call for a one-hour extension, the report said, citing congested polling stations nationwide.
Shas Chairman Arye Deri cast the issue in sharply partisan terms. In a Tuesday statement, he warned that his own camp was staying home while rival constituencies turned out in force.
"I am very concerned about the apathy in the Haredi and right-wing strongholds. The high voter turnout in the strongholds of the Left and in the Arab sector is deeply worrying."
Deri described "massive lines at polling stations in Bedouin communities in the Negev and in Tel Aviv," and said that "in our own camp, among the Haredi and right-wing strongholds, there is a sense of complacency."
Only the committee's chairman, Justice Noam Sohlberg, can decide whether voting hours are extended.
The Yashar party, headed by Gadi Eisenkot, opposed Likud's request in a statement of its own.
"No unusual incident has occurred to justify granting this request, which is intended to lay the groundwork for claims challenging the integrity of the election, in line with the lies Netanyahu has been spreading since this morning."
Earlier on Tuesday, Netanyahu cast his ballot after noon and declared, "They're trying to steal the election from us." He issued what he called an emergency call to Likud voters, citing a police report that, he said, showed three senior Ra'am associates were allegedly caught with envelopes of cash in the south. He also claimed that turnout in the Arab sector there was far higher than in the Jewish sector.
