Israeli Supreme Court Bans Real-Time Vote Count Data for Parties
Translated & summarized from Behadrei Haredim by baba
Israel's Supreme Court has ruled that political parties cannot digitally count and transmit the number of voters in real-time from polling stations. The decision, made by a majority of justices, expands a previous ban on sharing voter identification data. This ruling prevents parties from monitoring voting numbers and encouraging turnout. The court's full reasoning will be released later.
The story in 5 lines · by baba
- Supreme Court banned parties from real-time digital vote count transmission from polling stations.
- The ruling prohibits sharing even purely quantitative voter data, not just identifying information.
- Justices Khaled Kabub and Ruth Ronen formed the majority, with Justice David Mintz dissenting.
- The decision impacts parties' ability to monitor turnout and encourage voters.
- This ruling expands a prior prohibition related to the 'Elector' affair.
Israel's Supreme Court issued a significant ruling ahead of the upcoming elections, prohibiting political parties from digitally counting and transmitting the number of voters in real-time from polling stations. This decision, made by a majority of Justices Khaled Kabub and Ruth Ronen, with Justice David Mintz dissenting, restricts parties' ability to monitor voting data and encourage their supporters to vote. The ruling expands a previous prohibition, stemming from the 'Elector' affair, which already banned the real-time transfer of data identifying specific voters. The court has now extended the ban to purely quantitative data, preventing parties from receiving digital updates on the number of voters at any given polling station throughout election day.
This new directive contradicts a prior clarification by Din Livneh, the acting Director General of the Central Elections Committee. Livneh had previously stated that party representatives could use smartphones and other digital means to count voters and relay this information in real-time, provided it did not identify individual voters. However, the majority justices have now deemed even this limited quantitative data transfer illegal.
The court's decision effectively blocks the transmission of numerical participation data via digital tracking during election day, even without names or other identifying details. The ruling explicitly states that polling station committee members and observers from candidate lists are forbidden from using digital means to count voters and transmit this information in real-time to their respective parties. Justices Kabub and Ronen converted a conditional order into a final one, while Justice Mintz opposed this outcome. The court has released the decision and will provide the justices' reasoning at a later date, following written and oral arguments from the parties involved.
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