How about a major victory for democracy, and a sad statement on the lack of honesty and emunah on the part of those people, whoever they were, that felt they had to cheat rather than letting a fair electral process determine the results.
Only reasonable result in a new election will be Abutbol winning again (there weren't 100 fraudulent votes, let alone 1000) and an additional Charedi member on the city council.
The money quote in this joke ruling: בית המשפט לא קיבל את הטענות שלפיהן לא בוססה טענת היועמ"ש בעניין היקף הליקוי ובאופן שעלול היה לשנות את תוצאת הבחירות. נקבע שיש לראות בקהילת ה"קנאים" בבית שמש, לפי חומר הראיות, כקהילה רחבת היקף שכללה חסידויות שונות; רחבת היקף לפחות כסדר הגודל של הנדרש בכדי להביא לשינוי בתוצאת הבחירות לראשות העירייה ולמועצה.
Is this a joke? This is proof that the election with a gap of 1000 votes should be overturned because there are more than 1000 sikrikim who were potential for fraud? Lol
Don't expect though the anti-anything Jewish Bagatz to overturn the ruling though.
People really think this is a win for democracy? You make a bunch of claims, prove virtually none of them, create a whirl wind of media attention, villify an entire community and then a court throws out an election with no precedence whatsoever and you call that democracy?
I think that many commentators here are forgetting that proof was brought to the existence of a citywide network of "activists" trying to undermine the democratic process and to illegally influence the election in a certain direction.
In addition to the evidence from the "extremist" communities, there is also the Shas leader caught absconding with all of the Eli Cohen election slips from one polling place (to prevent people from having the opportunity to vote for Eli Cohen), the disappearance of Eli Cohen election slips in various other polling places, the non-extremist people who discovered that their identity number had been used to vote before they reached the polling place, and various other irregularities which cast serious doubt whether the will of the people of Bet Shemesh was actually expressed in these elections.
If we have properly supervised elections this time, we can be assured that the will of the people is actually expressed.
People are so certain that the people really want Abutbul for Mayor should be assuming that he will win a properly supervised election as well. I suspect that a properly supervised election (and vote-counting) process will show that Eli Cohen is preferred among the people of Bet Shemesh (including many Chareidim).
However, whatever the result (yes, even if Abutbul wins) if we have repeat elections, it will, at least, be believable if there is proper supervision and the network of those working to undermine democracy is prevented from influencing the elections this time.
Therefore, I do not find the court decision to be unreasonable; and I cannot see this as being anti-Chareidi. There was so much evidence of undermining of the democratic process that it is certainly reasonable for a court to demand that people vote again to show what their true choice is.
The question though, is this: When the election is rerun, what is to stop all that from happening again?
"the Shas leader caught absconding with all of the Eli Cohen election slips from one polling place (to prevent people from having the opportunity to vote for Eli Cohen), the disappearance of Eli Cohen election slips in various other polling places..."
These are serious attacks on the election process - but they are very easy to carry out. How will they be prevented? And if they are not prevented, what will a second election accomplish?
I hope that the Police and Misrad HaPnim (Interior Ministry, who are the office with overall responsibility for elections) will take serious steps to supervise polling places in ways that they were not supervised in the original elections. There should be ways of doing this, and, of course, that Shas polling place representative who stole the Eli Cohen election slips (and anyone else caught doing other illegal things) should not be allowed to be a polling place representative again.
A victory for law perhaps, Not for Democracy. The scam was using other people's TZs with their knowledge voting in their stead for the parties that they themselves wished to vote for. That's democracy. The judges did not rule on any fraud allegations.
If the rules allowed people to give over their TZ to somebody else to vote in their place, then there would be a level playing field and it would be democratic. Since the rules do not allow this, only those people willing to break the rules and cheat did this. That makes it unfair and undemocratic. If they want to allow proxy voting, fine, but then Cohen's campaign could have also organized this kind of proxy voting on their side.
Toquote all the news sources "A major victory for the CHILONIM"
ReplyDeleteand to quote a major haredi news site, Bechadri charedim, "hefsed charedi: - charedi loss.
ReplyDeleteA major victory for honest people.
ReplyDeleteIf Charedim want to consider it a loss for themselves, that tells me all I need to know.
How about a major victory for democracy, and a sad statement on the lack of honesty and emunah on the part of those people, whoever they were, that felt they had to cheat rather than letting a fair electral process determine the results.
ReplyDeleteOnly reasonable result in a new election will be Abutbol winning again (there weren't 100 fraudulent votes, let alone 1000) and an additional Charedi member on the city council.
ReplyDeleteFor the first time, a court invalidates an election with a gap of 956 votes when there was proof of only under 50 fraudulent votes.
ReplyDeleteThe money quote in this joke ruling:
ReplyDeleteבית המשפט לא קיבל את הטענות שלפיהן לא בוססה טענת היועמ"ש בעניין היקף הליקוי ובאופן שעלול היה לשנות את תוצאת הבחירות. נקבע שיש לראות בקהילת ה"קנאים" בבית שמש, לפי חומר הראיות, כקהילה רחבת היקף שכללה חסידויות שונות; רחבת היקף לפחות כסדר הגודל של הנדרש בכדי להביא לשינוי בתוצאת הבחירות לראשות העירייה ולמועצה.
Is this a joke? This is proof that the election with a gap of 1000 votes should be overturned because there are more than 1000 sikrikim who were potential for fraud? Lol
Don't expect though the anti-anything Jewish Bagatz to overturn the ruling though.
It says there are enough "extremists" to carry out the fraud. You don't need 1000 people to change 1000 votes.
DeleteThe good news for Cohen supporters is that now every election can be disqualified based on this argument, until Cohen wins.
Deleteunknown - maybe you should have been Abutbols lawyer instead of Veinrot..
ReplyDeleteNo lawyer would have helped. The judges ruled, not on the evidence, but on the seculars' wishes.
ReplyDeleteRead the ruling on full. It's full of it.
where is it available in full?
ReplyDeleteSee here.
Deletehttp://www.bhol.co.il/forums/topic.asp?cat_id=4&topic_id=3035380&forum_id=771
The original is at http://index.justice.gov.il/Pubilcations/Articles/Documents/54396-11-13.pdf
DeleteAfter looking over much of the 60 pages (despite my limited Hebrew...) I'm surprised at how justice works here.
A major victory for bloggers. A big loss for people with Facebook friends from Beit Shemesh, :-)
ReplyDeleteDoes anyone here honestly think that the results will be different in a re-do?
ReplyDeleteCohen doesn't have a realistic chance of winning.
People really think this is a win for democracy? You make a bunch of claims, prove virtually none of them, create a whirl wind of media attention, villify an entire community and then a court throws out an election with no precedence whatsoever and you call that democracy?
ReplyDeleteAre you giving your opinion of the election laws from what you read in the court decision or you saw it in an episode of Ally McBeal?
DeleteI think that many commentators here are forgetting that proof was brought to the existence of a citywide network of "activists" trying to undermine the democratic process and to illegally influence the election in a certain direction.
ReplyDeleteIn addition to the evidence from the "extremist" communities, there is also the Shas leader caught absconding with all of the Eli Cohen election slips from one polling place (to prevent people from having the opportunity to vote for Eli Cohen), the disappearance of Eli Cohen election slips in various other polling places, the non-extremist people who discovered that their identity number had been used to vote before they reached the polling place, and various other irregularities which cast serious doubt whether the will of the people of Bet Shemesh was actually expressed in these elections.
If we have properly supervised elections this time, we can be assured that the will of the people is actually expressed.
People are so certain that the people really want Abutbul for Mayor should be assuming that he will win a properly supervised election as well. I suspect that a properly supervised election (and vote-counting) process will show that Eli Cohen is preferred among the people of Bet Shemesh (including many Chareidim).
However, whatever the result (yes, even if Abutbul wins) if we have repeat elections, it will, at least, be believable if there is proper supervision and the network of those working to undermine democracy is prevented from influencing the elections this time.
Therefore, I do not find the court decision to be unreasonable; and I cannot see this as being anti-Chareidi. There was so much evidence of undermining of the democratic process that it is certainly reasonable for a court to demand that people vote again to show what their true choice is.
Bivrachah,
Catriel Lev, RBS-Alef
The question though, is this: When the election is rerun, what is to stop all that from happening again?
Delete"the Shas leader caught absconding with all of the Eli Cohen election slips from one polling place (to prevent people from having the opportunity to vote for Eli Cohen), the disappearance of Eli Cohen election slips in various other polling places..."
These are serious attacks on the election process - but they are very easy to carry out. How will they be prevented? And if they are not prevented, what will a second election accomplish?
I hope that the Police and Misrad HaPnim (Interior Ministry, who are the office with overall responsibility for elections) will take serious steps to supervise polling places in ways that they were not supervised in the original elections. There should be ways of doing this, and, of course, that Shas polling place representative who stole the Eli Cohen election slips (and anyone else caught doing other illegal things) should not be allowed to be a polling place representative again.
DeleteCatriel
A victory for law perhaps, Not for Democracy.
ReplyDeleteThe scam was using other people's TZs with their knowledge voting in their stead for the parties that they themselves wished to vote for. That's democracy.
The judges did not rule on any fraud allegations.
If the rules allowed people to give over their TZ to somebody else to vote in their place, then there would be a level playing field and it would be democratic. Since the rules do not allow this, only those people willing to break the rules and cheat did this. That makes it unfair and undemocratic. If they want to allow proxy voting, fine, but then Cohen's campaign could have also organized this kind of proxy voting on their side.
Delete