National Union Chairman MK Bezalel Smotrich tweeted on Thursday morning: “We will join the demand of Shaked and Bennett of a recount of the soldiers’ votes. There is a very bad smell here of a deliberate attempt to eliminate mandates belonging to the right and must absolutely not allow this to happen.”
According to Ha’aretz, the data published by the Central Elections Committee includes serious inconsistencies, with the number of valid votes appearing in 46 sets of double envelopes (containing the soldiers’ votes) is lower than their actual totals, with a cumulative gap of some 60,000 votes.
Thus, for example, one cluster of 2,400 votes was reported to contain only 800 votes, making the baseline for calculating the threshold percentage and the number of seats going to each party.
The New Right party on Thursday demanded a vote recount, after their observers had been removed from the election committee’s facility. The party issued a statement declaring: “We won’t let the elections to be stolen.”
New Right chairman Bennett said Thursday morning: “I pray to God, we will fight for every vote.”
The Elections Committee made it clear that it maintains control over the counting of the soldiers’ votes following the close fight around the electoral threshold.
Before the start of the IDF vote count, New Right was short 4,500 votes to get into the Knesset; Ra’am-Balad was past the threshold, but only by 8,400 votes, which means that its fate could be reversed since very few soldiers are expected to vote for them; Moshe Feiglin’s Zehut party was short 30,000 votes; Orly Levy-Abekasis was short 61,000 votes.
