Coalition Opposes Permanent Polling Stations in Nursing Homes

Israel’s coalition is opposing a Central Elections Committee bill that would make permanent a rule allowing polling stations inside nursing homes. The measure was already used as a temporary order in the last two election cycles, first introduced during the COVID-19 crisis, and is intended to raise turnout among older voters. Likud and Religious Zionism representatives voted against it in the committee’s plenum, but the proposal still won a majority and is set to go before the Knesset Constitution Committee next Monday.

Likud sources told Wynet that the plan would help Avigdor Liberman politically and said the bill also includes public housing for new immigrants who reached retirement age. When the rule was approved as a temporary order before the previous elections, Likud was in opposition and also objected then. The proposal does not cover frail elderly residents, because a nursing-home wing with 50 hospitalized residents is treated as a hospital and already receives a ballot box.

Under the bill’s wording, ballot boxes would be placed in assisted-living nursing homes, in Housing Ministry homes for people with limited means, and in public-housing complexes for immigrants who are allowed to remain there after retirement age. The coalition says the change could benefit the opposition, but there is no way to verify that claim because votes cast at these special polling stations are counted together, as with soldiers, prisoners and sailors.

Knesset Constitution Committee chair MK Simcha Rothman, who will lead the debate and also represents his party in the committee plenary, opposed polling stations in nursing homes on grounds of equality and discrimination. The coalition also opposes a second Elections Committee amendment that would let any person choose an “address for election purposes” and update their voting address up to 64 days before an election. That change would help students vote near their place of study, but also yeshiva students. Likud says it would create major logistical problems and warned that voter movement between stations on a large scale could cause disorder and disrupt the expression of the public will.