Sagi Keizler, who heads Likud’s election integrity operation, launched a sharp attack Thursday on Israel’s Central Elections Committee, claiming the body ignored hundreds of complaints his party filed on election day for the 26th Knesset.
“On election day we submitted 1,183 complaints to the Elections Committee about fraud, corruption, cash transfers, fuel cards, food vouchers, and illegal use of voter mobilization software,” Keizler said. “The Elections Committee didn’t deal with it—not on election day and not after.”
Keizler also leveled serious accusations about how senior committee officials behaved in the run-up to the vote. “Shortly before the election, we received threats from very senior people at the Elections Committee, telling us ‘the guys you’re sending to polling stations—they shouldn’t make trouble’ and not to photograph anything at the polls again or they’d throw them out of the polling station.”
Keizler rejected the Elections Committee’s characterization of the complaints, saying most of the reports came from Arab communities. “We filed complaints from Majdal Shams to Bir al-Haddaj, through Umm al-Fahm and Rahat. The number of violations there was inconceivable,” he said.
Keizler was responding to comments by Din Livne, the acting director-general of the Central Elections Committee.