Likud’s lawyer in charge of polling stations for the party on Saturday said no evidence had been found of voter turnout in Tuesday’s election and denied the blame for the party’s display by Prime Minister Benjamin’s party. Netanyahu.
MK Shlomo Karhi, the deputy chairman of the party’s electoral committee who headed his representatives at polling stations, was punished by the main lawyer and other Likud lawyers after the pro-Netanyahu bloc was again called lack of majority in vote, Israel fourth in two years.
Final results showed that Likud won 285,000 fewer votes this week than in the elections last March, falling from 36 to 30 seats in the Knesset with 120 seats.
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Public broadcaster Kan on Thursday said the chief lawyer and other Likud lawyers were blaming Karhi for the lost votes.
“You did not deliver,” Netanyahu told Karhi, according to the report.
Karhi denied the report on Saturday, saying it was “a complete lie,” in a Twitter thread defending how the party handled the election.
Since Netanyahu was asked to oversee “the party’s ballot box staff,” Karhi said he has spent his time in office.
“The main goal was to do everything possible to prevent any fraud, skewing results and protect the integrity of the elections in the whole country! In every department! “he wrote.
Members of the Central Select Committee will count votes in Jerusalem on 25 March 2020. (Yonatan Sindel / Flash90)
Karhi, who was also Likud’s representative on the General Elections Committee, visited a number of measures to increase electoral security and confidence in the vote count, such as taking pictures of results immediately after votes have been counted.
“I’m sure without these, we would have been in a much more difficult position in terms of results,” he said.
He also denied that there were problems with an application used to monitor voter turnout, following claims that it was to blame for the lower turnout for Likud. The Kan report said Likud officials believe supporters stayed home at the polls – although it is also possible that they migrated to other parties.
Karhi said he and other Likud representatives were also present to count absent votes and monitor the counting of all votes.
“It’s a disappointment, but this is the result,” said Karhi, who is 24 on Likud’s selection slate and ready to join the incoming Knesset. “We left no opening for fraud or skewing the results and fought for every vote for Likud.”
“Thank you for all the information we gathered on election day, including complete protocols of our existing ballot boxes … I commended the Prime Minister on setting up a team of Amit Halevi and Simcha Rothman and main branch, which will go over all protocols for further investigation, ”said Karhi.
He seemed to be referring to Netanyahu’s team who had to set up an order to find errors and problems with votes for the joint list, trying to get around 2,600 votes to replace a chair. get more for Likud at the expense of the Arab group and move the Knesset. balance a little in his favor.
Benjamin Netanyahu moves while voting at a polling station in Jerusalem on March 23, 2021 in the fourth national election in two years. (Ronen Zvulun / Pool / AFP)
Karhi’s comments came after Israel Hayom newspaper reported that the team ordered by Netanyahu would be the focus of detecting disorder at polling stations with a high turnout for the joint list in Arab towns such as Umm al-Fahm, Taybeh, Jaffa and Kfar Manda.
The report said the team is made up of Likud MK Amit Halevi, MK-to-be Religious Zionism and lawyer Simcha Rothman and lawyer Michael Rabilo. Investigated Netanyahu met with the three on Wednesday to explore the legal options open to Likud.
Rothman, who was selected for the Knesset as the fourth candidate on the far-flung Religious Zionism slate, confirmed to the paper that the team had been asked to “detect errors and forgeries.”
Even if the effort were successful, Likud would still fall short of a majority with 60 seats, even with the support of the right-wing Yamina party, which has not promised either the pro- or anti-Netanyahu bloc . Netanyahu was said to be looking for “flaws” in other parties to jump ship and join his coalition to put it over the top and make a majority.
Israel cast its vote in the general election, in Kafr Manda, northern Israel, on March 23, 2021. (Jamal Awad / FLASH90)
Likud in previous elections has called for voter fraud among Israeli Arab voters, fishing the Arab community and the left, but has not confirmed any major fraud.
Ahead of Tuesday’s election Netanyahu abandoned such astronomy and tried to accept the Arab public, in an attempt to gain community support.
As a result of this effort Likud won a much larger percentage of the vote in some Arab communities, but was very small in real numbers – both due to the low turnout among the masses. Arab and because support for Likud, even multiplied, remains a minority in these communities.
Prior to the election, Knesset spokesman Yariv Levin of Likud attacked the Central Election Committee as “biased” and “illogical,” but rejected a Trump-like plan to dispute the results and vowed to accept the will of voters.
With all votes counted Thursday night, results showed that Netanyahu had failed, for the fourth time in a row, to win a clear parliamentary majority. The decisions once again left both its main opponent and its political opponents without a clear path to forming a majority coalition, and called for a lasting breakdown. and a possible fifth election.
