A-G asked to investigate voter fraud in 31 polling stations

After checking complaints of irregularities in the September 17 election, the Central Elections Committee found 31 ballot boxes to be problematic in polling stations throughout the country.

By LAHAV HARKOV
Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit (photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM)
Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit
(photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM)
Central Elections Committee chairman Hanan Melcer asked Attorney-General Avichai Mandelblit to open a criminal investigation into 31 cases of voter fraud in last month’s election.
“Purity of elections is the basis of a democratic system,” Melcer wrote in a letter sent Wednesday. “If you take away the elections’ purity, you are taking away the justification for their existence.”
After checking complaints of irregularities in the September 17 election, the Central Elections Committee found 31 ballot boxes to be problematic in polling stations throughout the country.
Melcer asked that there be an investigation of 13 ballot boxes in Yarka, five in Furiedis, three if Shfaram, two each in Sakhnin and Kafr Kassem, and one each in Arara, Beit Shemesh, Araba, Karmiel and Haifa.
In addition, a total of 22 cases of double voting were found in stations in Jisr e-Zarka, Deir el-Asad, Haifa and Lapid.
Other irregularities Melcer reported were polling stations where people posed as observers for Labor and Democratic Union despite not being appointed by those parties, and people who were out of the country but were listed as having voted in their hometowns in Israel.
Melcer asked that Mandelblit update him on a decision made on this matter within a month, and once a month on any progress in the investigations until they are completed.
Voter fraud was a major issue in this election, with the Likud campaign putting an emphasis on voter fraud allegations. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed that there has been an attempt to “steal the election.”
The Likud’s voter fraud prevention efforts focused exclusively on Arab areas, and included a failed attempt to pass a law allowing party appointed election observers to bring cameras into polling stations, but not voting booths.
In response to the allegations, the Central Elections Committee hired thousands of observers, including some equipped with body cameras to film anywhere there is a suspicion of fraud.


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