Israel Election Results Certified After Audit of 9,069 Polling Stations Finds No Fraud

Israel’s Central Elections Committee certified the Israel election results on Wednesday, Nov. 4, after an audit of 9,069 polling stations found no irregularities that compromised the Oct. 27 vote, rejecting fraud claims promoted by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Committee chair and Supreme Court Justice Noam Sohlberg handed the results to President Isaac Herzog at his Jerusalem residence, Al Jazeera reported.

The certification locks in a hung parliament. Netanyahu’s bloc holds 53 seats in the 120-member Knesset, the opposition bloc led by former army chief Gadi Eisenkot holds 48 and the Arab-led parties Ra’am and the Joint List hold 19. Herzog said “not every commitment and promise can be fulfilled” and urged both sides to avoid another election.

Israel election results: what the committee found

“All complaints submitted by political factions have been reviewed and there were no findings indicating harm to the integrity of the election,” the committee said, according to AFP. Its acting director, Dean Livne, said each complaint had been examined individually. Sohlberg warned that people casting doubt on the outcome pose “a real danger” to Israeli democracy and said lawfully determined results “are binding on us all.”

The vote to ratify was close. In the committee’s five-member presidium, the Yesh Atid and Blue and White representatives voted in favor, Likud and Shas abstained, and Sohlberg cast the deciding vote. Likud lawmaker Amit Halevi quit the committee, alleging that some members of parliament “bought their seats with bribe money.” Qatar has called claims that it funded Arab-led parties “disinformation.”

Netanyahu has pointed to election-day arrests of people carrying envelopes of cash and has said Arab lawmakers received money from Qatar. The committee said remaining suspicions of foreign interference are still being investigated but do not justify withholding the results, according to the Associated Press.

The Shin Bet clash

The certification followed a confrontation inside Israel’s security establishment. Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara refused a request from Shin Bet director David Zini, a Netanyahu appointee, to question senior Arab politicians. “It is not permissible to interrogate citizens or elected officials without evidence to justify such action,” her office said, as reported by the Jerusalem Post. Citing the daily Maariv, the Post named Ahmad Tibi, Mansour Abbas and Sami Abu Shehadeh among the four officials Zini wanted to interview.

The Shin Bet told the committee that its intelligence pointed to foreign funding and influence operations involving “thousands of people and possibly more,” according to the Times of Israel. Law enforcement sources told Haaretz they knew of no operation on that scale. National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir wrote on X that “the elections were stolen,” and Eisenkot accused Netanyahu of a “pogrom against democracy,” the Guardian reported.

By the numbers: the coalition math

Neither camp can reach 61 seats alone. By a Boston Report calculation from the certified count, Netanyahu’s bloc is eight seats short and Eisenkot’s bloc is 13 short. Eisenkot could reach a majority only with both Arab-led parties, or with defectors from Netanyahu’s camp. The Arab-led lists’ combined 19 seats equal 15.8% of the Knesset. Our Oct. 28 report on early returns, based on partial counts, had the Netanyahu bloc at 54; the final tally moved it down one seat.

Likud remains the largest single party with 27 seats, six more than Eisenkot’s Yashar!, according to the final count published by Ynet. Two smaller lists, the Reservists and the Economic party, fell below the electoral threshold.

What happens next

Herzog will hold two days of consultations, meeting smaller parties first and finishing with Yashar! and Likud on Thursday. He will then give one candidate 28 days to build a coalition, with a possible 14-day extension. If no one succeeds, Israel would vote again early next year. After the November 2022 election, Netanyahu needed 58 days to form a government, and Israel held five elections between 2019 and 2022. Our election-night explainer on coalition math lays out the main paths, and the outcome will shape Israel’s role in the region’s geopolitical tensions.

Sources

• Al Jazeera: Israel vote results confirmed as election commission rejects fraud claims
• AFP: Israel election commission rejects Netanyahu charges of fraud
• Associated Press: Israel’s president accepts certified election results
• The Guardian: Israel’s election commission rejects Netanyahu claims of voting fraud
• Jerusalem Post: Attorney general denies Shin Bet request to interrogate Arab party lawmakers
• Ynet: All votes counted, Netanyahu bloc 53, Eisenkot 48, Arab parties 19