Adalah intervenes throughout Election Day over reported delays, missing Arabic ballots, police interference and barriers to voting.

Since polls for Israel’s Knesset elections opened this morning, Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel has received dozens of reports from Arab voters of problems at polling stations in Arab towns and Arab neighborhoods in mixed cities. Throughout the day, Adalah has sent a series of urgent letters to the Central Elections Committee (CEC), the Israel Police Commissioner and the relevant Regional Elections Committees, demanding that they examine the reports and intervene immediately where necessary to guarantee the basic right to vote for all.

Reported delays and closures

Adalah received reports that polling station committees slowed the voting process, including by asking irrelevant questions of Palestinian citizens of Israel trying to vote, and in some cases by shutting the doors and halting voting altogether.

In an urgent letter, Adalah asked the CEC chair to use his special powers under Section 70A of the Knesset Elections Law, including extending voting hours where voting was disrupted. Adalah later sent the CEC a continuously updated list of the polling stations where closures and delays had been reported, stressing that the list does not capture the full scope of the problem. Read letter

Missing Arabic ballot slips

Following reports from Haifa, Nazareth, I’billin, Eilabun, Shefa-‘Amr and Nof HaGalil that ballot slips with Arabic text had not been provided at a number of polling stations, Adalah demanded that the CEC ensure such ballot slips are supplied immediately where they are missing. Read letter

Reported police interference

Following reports of police interference in voting in Arab towns, particularly in the Naqab, Adalah sent an urgent letter to Police Commissioner Danny Levy and to the chair of the Beersheba Regional Elections Committee. Adalah stressed that the law permits police presence at polling stations only as necessary to maintain order, and warned that a heavy police presence may intimidate voters and undermine equality in elections. Read letter

In a further letter, Adalah demanded clarification about a police checkpoint reportedly set up this afternoon on the road leading to a polling station in Ar’arat an-Naqab. Police reportedly stopped and checked vehicles one by one before the road was closed to traffic. Read letter

Barriers to voting for women, elderly and disabled voters

Adalah also intervened in several cases where voters were reportedly prevented from voting:

• Ar’ara an-Naqab: at one polling station, all members of the polling station committee were men. Women wearing a burqa therefore could not identify themselves before a woman, and many reportedly left without voting. Adalah demanded that a woman authorized to identify voters be present, in line with the CEC’s own guidelines. Read letter

• Adalah received reports that elderly voters and voters with disabilities in Kafr Manda, and in a nursing home in Beit HaEmek that houses residents from nearby Arab towns, were prevented from voting with a companion of their choice. In one case, an elderly woman left without voting. Adalah stressed that the law allows voters who need assistance to bring a companion, without having to prove a disability or be questioned about it. Adalah demanded immediate instructions to polling station committees, and that affected voters be allowed to return and vote. [Read letter: Kafr Manda] [Read letter: Beit HaEmek]

Irregularities in the handling of ballots

Adalah received reports from polling stations in Tel al-Malh and Beersheba of irregularities in how ballot envelopes were handled. These included envelopes signed by only one committee member, and inconsistent instructions to voters. Such irregularities could later be used to disqualify votes. Adalah demanded that they be recorded in full in the polling station minutes, and that officials be instructed to follow the rules uniformly. [Read letter:Tel al-Malh] [Read letter: Beersheba]

Power outages in the Naqab

Adalah sent two urgent letters to the CEC chair and to the chair of the Beersheba Regional Elections Committee about power outages disrupting voting in the Naqab. In Ar’ara an-Naqab, prolonged outages, which the regional elections committee confirmed by phone, delayed the identification of voters, which was being carried out under makeshift lighting. Similar outages were later reported at several polling station clusters in Rahat, including schools in the city. Adalah asked the CEC to use its special powers under Section 70A of the Knesset Elections Law to ensure that voters registered at these polling stations are not denied their right to vote, including by extending voting hours as needed. [Read letter: Ar’ara an-Naqab] [Read letter: Rahat]

A cause for concern

Adalah stressed that these reports, received from voters in a large number of Arab towns, raise serious concern that these are not isolated irregularities but a wider, recurring pattern that must be addressed. “When the delays are concentrated in Arab towns, the harm is not only to the voting rights of those affected, but to the principle of equality in elections,” Adalah wrote.