Photo Credit: Flash90
Beit Shemesh mayoral candidate Eli Cohen hugging a fan during a press conference about the upcoming repeat elections.

The Ministry of the Interior has announced special directives to make sure that the fraud and irregularities of last October’s Municipal Elections, will not be repeated at the re-votes taking place in Beit Shemesh and Nazareth.

The Jerusalem and Supreme courts ordered new elections in Beit Shemesh and Nazareth, overturning the municipal election result of 20th October 2013, due to “widespread and systematic acts of fraud which was intended to change the election results”.

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Whereas the ballots are usually supervised by local residents and political parties, in the new elections only government employees “professionals with experience in managing the election process, from outside the city” will be used to supervise the balloting process. Furthermore, the Ministry has ordered massive police presence, to ensure that the new elections will be law-abiding.

Some of the allegations following the previous elections in Beit Shemesh were regarding the supervisors at balloting stations who may have participated in fraud and irregularities, such as by collaborating with the voter-fraud, or taking matters into their own hands by invalidating voting slips for rival candidates.

Furthermore, the Beit Shemesh electoral lists were so inaccurate and out-of-date, that many non-residents and even dead people were still registered as voters – leaving the door wide open for the voter fraud and scams.

Following the last election, residents joked that special arrangements had been made in some balloting stations so that Cohanim had solely voted in the morning, as the dead people were voting in the afternoon.

Eli Cohen, the challenging candidate for mayor, recently announced at a campaign meeting in Beit Shemesh that “this time, the dead won’t vote!”

The Ministry of the Interior seems to agree.

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David Morris has been nominated for the President of Israel's Prize 2010. He is an entrepreneur in the fields of charity and electro-optics; Established Lema'an Achai ("For My Brothers"), the innovative community social services charity in Ramat Bet Shemesh, "Magen", the Bet Shemesh Child Protection Agency, and "Yad LeYedid" (A Hand to a Friend) charity helping impoverished families in Jerusalem. His day-job as Owner/CEO of Scitronix Ltd is marketing sophisticated electro-optical products to high tech industries in Israel. David is the proud dad of six amazing children, and luckiest-husband-in-the-world of Julie Morris.