Israel’s main opposition party, Yashar, said on Tuesday that a request by Netanyahu’s Likud party to extend voting hours was an attempt to “lay the groundwork for allegations challenging the integrity of the election”, the Guardian reported.
Likud said it had asked the electoral authorities to extend voting, with polls due to close at 10pm local time. Yashar, Gadi Eisenkot’s party, which is leading in the polls, said it firmly opposed any extension. The Central Election Committee (CEC) was due to meet within the hour to consider the request.
Netanyahu and his far-right allies had urged their supporters throughout the day to turn out for a vote they claimed was being “stolen”, in what opposition described as a racist scare campaign.
Parties in the anti-Netanyahu bloc also filed several complaints with the committee on Tuesday. Yashar said it had contacted the CEC after reports that some of its ballot slips had been removed or damaged at polling stations. Naftali Bennett’s Together (B’Yachad) party said it had received reports that an app was being used to monitor voters at polling stations in northern Israel.
The Civil Election Guard, a volunteer force of election monitors, said ballot slips for the Haredi Public party had been removed from voting booths in ultra-Orthodox communities or hidden underneath other parties’ papers, according to Haaretz.
(information from The Guardian)
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