Central Elections Committee Chair Justice Noam Sohlberg said on Tuesday that in an exceptional state of emergency, a limited postponement of elections could be justified if free, equal, and accessible voting for all citizens cannot be ensured. Speaking at a closed Hebrew University event, he stressed that any delay must be justified, supervised, and narrowly bounded, and must not become a tool for the government to extend its tenure.
According to ynet reporter Amir Ettinger, Sohlberg made the remarks while presenting a joint paper he wrote with Acting Director General of the Central Elections Committee, attorney Dean Leibner. The paper examines elections during a crisis and the possibility of postponing them.
Sohlberg outlined the criteria discussed in the paper for deciding whether to delay elections during an emergency. He said any postponement must be time-limited and accompanied either by a specific new election date or by a clear mechanism for setting that date.
He told students in the meeting that the system should prepare for every scenario, but added at the end, “I hope we will not find ourselves in a situation where we need to consider postponing elections.”
