Israelis flocked to the polls in numbers that haven’t been seen since 1999, in the hopes of avoiding the necessity of having to return to cast another ballot once again for a fourth round this coming September.
By 6 pm, 56.3 percent of all eligible Israelis had already voted, according to Central Elections Committee figures, despite the predictions of analysts that turnout could be blunted by “voter fatigue” or by fears of being exposed somehow to the novel coronavirus.
All told, there are 6,453, 255 eligible voters in the State of Israel. Last September, 69.4 percent of those voters went to the polls and in the second round of elections, that figure had dropped, with just 67.9 percent of eligible voters casting their ballots.
But this time around, even at the special “coronavirus voter polling stations” eligible voters who are currently under quarantine made their way into the tents to cast their ballots. All 16 stations were busy and by the time the special polls had closed at 6:45 pm, 4,073 of the 5,630 quarantined voters had managed to cast their ballots.
The exit polls are still not showing a clear winner, although Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party appeared to have a slight edge according to most news outlets. Nevertheless, it is still anyone’s race to win, especially with the extremely high number of Arab voters who came out to cast their ballots this year as well – a much higher percentage of that population voting, in fact, than in previous elections. Whether the higher number of Jewish voters will balance out the impact of that sector remains to be seen.