'Israeli' elections: Counting of double envelopes to begin at midnight, conclude tomorrow

The director of the Central Elections Committee control center in 'Israel', Elad Naveh, announced that it remains too early to evaluate the potential impact of double envelopes, noting that their counting will only commence around midnight and is expected to wrap up by tomorrow evening.

Speaking to the ynet studio, Naveh outlined the scale of the remaining ballots, stating: "The expectation is for more than half a million envelopes, and we cannot even give a standard number of seats, because as long as all polling stations have not been absorbed and the envelopes have not been counted, we simply do not know."

Naveh cautioned that even after the count concludes, the announced results will only be "nearly final," as the committee is scheduled to conduct a formal audit and control process on the polling stations next week.

Hundreds of thousands of votes are slated to be tallied only after the release of preliminary results, introducing the potential to reshape parliamentary seat allocations over the coming days.

According to a report by ynet, 'Israel'’s Central Elections Committee anticipates between 600,000 and 650,000 citizens will cast their votes through the double-envelope mechanism, marking an unprecedented figure in the country’s electoral history.

By comparison, approximately 463,000 electors utilized the procedure during the 2022 parliamentary elections.

The sharp increase is largely attributed to the vast deployment of military reservists and the large-scale evacuation of civilians displaced from their communities due to the war, leaving many unable to cast ballots at their assigned residential precincts.

The Central Elections Committee projects that these delayed ballots could account for the equivalent of roughly 15 Knesset seats, potentially altering the definitive parliamentary balance following the regular count.

The double-envelope procedure serves as an absentee mechanism designed to ensure ballot secrecy while preventing individuals from voting more than once. Under this protocol, voters place their ballot selection into a standard envelope, which is then sealed inside an outer envelope bearing their identification details.

These packets are forwarded to the Central Elections Committee, which verifies that each elector has not cast a separate ballot at their registered local polling station.

Once confirmed, the outer envelopes with personal data are separated from the inner envelopes to preserve anonymity before being transferred for counting.

In addition to deployed soldiers and reservists, the protocol is legally designated to accommodate hospital inpatients, incarcerated individuals, police personnel, diplomatic missions abroad, and eligible voters with disabilities.