Interactive Election Map Shows Voting Trends by Neighborhood

Ahead of the upcoming Knesset elections, Israeli citizens will be able to access an interactive map on the ynet website to compare voting data from previous elections at national, city, neighborhood, and even individual polling station levels. The map, created by data expert Nir Smilga, analyzes settlements and neighborhoods across Israel, providing details on vote percentages for each party and bloc, overall turnout, socioeconomic clusters, leading parties, and shifts between the 24th and 25th Knessets, as well as campaign focus.

In the previous national elections, voter turnout was 70.6%, with 4.8 million valid votes. The coalition parties received 49.1% of the vote, while the opposition garnered 50.9%. Notably, Meretz and Balad did not pass the electoral threshold. For example, in the Neve Dekalim neighborhood of Rishon LeZion, turnout was 73.6% with approximately 3,300 valid votes. Of these, 58.2% voted for coalition parties, with the Likud being the leading party at 41%. Yesh Atid received 21.1% of the neighborhood's votes in 2022, followed by the National Unity Party at 13.9% and Religious Zionism at 10.5%.

The map categorizes areas based on four classifications: 'Certain' (strong support for the target bloc/party and above-average turnout), 'Encourage Voting' (strong support but insufficient turnout), 'Persuade' (not a strong or weak base with minor change), and 'Low Priority' (weak base with little change from the previous election). These classifications are based on the target bloc's vote share in the 25th Knesset, turnout compared to the national average, and the change in vote share from the 24th Knesset.

Smilga highlighted that the map uniquely combines six comparative metrics with a granular level of detail, from city to neighborhood and individual polling station. It allows users to explore the 24th and 25th Knesset elections through six views: support levels for blocs, turnout percentages, socioeconomic clusters, leading parties, shifts between the last two election cycles, and campaign focus indicating where blocs and parties should invest. Users can filter the map by settlement religion, socioeconomic cluster range, support level for blocs, turnout percentages, and leading parties to uncover patterns and connections between demographic and socioeconomic characteristics and voting patterns.