Elections 2020: 65.5% of Israelis vote, highest since 1999

The voter turnout at 8 p.m. was 65.5%, a 1.8% increase from the September elections and the highest turnout rate at this hour since the 1999 elections.

By GIL HOFFMAN
Illustration of voting notes in the Israeli general elections on March 02, 2020 (photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
Illustration of voting notes in the Israeli general elections on March 02, 2020
(photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
The turnout in Israel's unprecedented third election in under a year on Monday showed no signs of voter apathy, as Israelis cast ballots in an attempt to end the political stalemate.
The voter turnout at 8 p.m. was 65.5%, a 1.8% increase from the September elections and the highest turnout rate at this hour since the 1999 election.
Most of the 10,631 polling stations will be open until 10 p.m., enabling Israel's 6,453,255 eligible voters to cast ballots. There were also be 14 special polling stations for the 5,630 Israelis quarantined due to exposure to the coronavirus, which closed at 7 p.m. More than 70% of those eligible were reported to have voted in those stations.
In the April 9 election, 68.46% of eligible voters cast ballots, with 69.83% voting in the September 17 race. There were more than 200,000 voters who cast ballots on Monday who had not voted in September.
Both Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Blue and White leader Benny Gantz expressed concern about what they claimed was lower turnout in areas where their parties had done well in recent elections. Gantz and his number two, Yair Lapid, went to the streets of Tel Aviv with megaphones begging people to vote, and MKs Gabi Ashkenazi and Moshe Ya'alon were sent to other Blue and White strongholds.
Blue and White sources said turnout in Tel Aviv was ridiculously low, well behind the rest of the country.
Netanyahu went to Ma'ale Adumim and complained about low turnout in Judea and Samaria and southern development towns. He went on Facebook Live all day, urging Likud supporters to vote. The Likud complained that the press had made it look like the Likud was well ahead, discouraging Likud supporters from voting in the final hours.
There were complaints all day to the Central Elections Committee about forgeries and hidden ballots. Blue and White complained that the Likud campaign had doctored a video of Gantz.
In the original video, Gantz warned Blue and White supporters "If you don’t put Blue and White in the ballot box, there will be a fourth election." The doctored version had him only saying "Don’t put Blue and White in the ballot box."
The head of the Central Elections Committee, Supreme Court Judge Neal Hendel forced Likud to removed the video from its Facebook and Instagram pages and to pay Blue and White NIS 7,500.
Gantz told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday at a press conference in Ramat Gan that whatever happens in Monday's race, he will accept the results. He wished Netanyahu well in his trial, which is set to start on March 17, and said that he did not want to see another prime minister go to jail.
"Everything has an end – and for Netanyahu, that end happens tomorrow," he predicted.
Gantz said that once the trial begins, he expects Netanyahu's current political allies to join forces with Blue and White, promising that "surprises will still come." The Blue and White leader was reacting to Netanyahu saying earlier that MKs in Gantz's party would follow former Blue and White MK Gadi Yevarkan to Likud.
The four parties that make up Netanyahu's right-wing and religious bloc have nearly enough support to form a government on their own, the prime minister said at what was billed as an emergency meeting of his Likud faction on Sunday at the Airport City banquet hall.