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The State of Israel held an early general election on Tuesday, September 17, 2019. An overview of the proportional representation system used to choose members of the Jewish state's unicameral Parliament - the Knesset - is presented here; Israel's party system will be reviewed in Part III of this presentation.
The Central Elections Committee has live September 2019 election results in Hebrew here, as well as final April 9, 2019 general election results. Nationwide results are available here for the following Knesset elections:
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The election statistics presented in this space come from reports and data files published by Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics, the Knesset and the Central Elections Committee.
General Aspects of the Electoral System
The parliament of the State of Israel, the Knesset, is composed of 120 members directly elected by universal adult suffrage for a four-year term of office. Knesset seats are filled by proportional representation (PR) in a single, countrywide electoral constituency. Political parties or alignments of two or more parties submit lists of candidates, and may form surplus vote agreements, that is combine their lists for the distribution of Knesset seats. The lists are closed, so voters may not choose individual candidates in or alter the order of such lists. Voters cast a ballot for a single list.
Knesset seats are distributed on a nationwide basis among party lists that pass a qualifying threshold, originally equal to one percent of the vote, and subsequently raised to 1.5% (in 1992), two percent (in 2006) and 3.25% (in 2014). The number of votes won by each qualifying list is divided by an electoral quota, calculated by dividing the total number of votes cast for qualifying lists by 120 (the number of Knesset seats), and the result of this division, disregarding fractions, is the initial number of seats obtained by each list. Any seats that remain unallocated after the application of the electoral quota are distributed among lists or combination of lists according to the largest average method, known in Israel as the Bader-Ofer method, and internationally as the D'Hondt rule; seats won by combinations of lists are apportioned among constituent lists by the Bader-Ofer method as well.
Copyright © 2009-2019 Manuel
Álvarez-Rivera. All Rights Reserved.
Last update: September 18, 2019.