The haredim just can't get a break...

now in Afula the Haredi representative, who was representing a joint party list of Degel and Shas, has been evicted by the Supreme Court from the City Council.

After squeaking in by just 2 votes over the minimum, the single Haredi representative has been disqualified. A competing party, called "Choosing Afula" had petitioned the court because 4 voting slips of theirs had been disqualified for having been marked up improperly.

According to Bechadrei, the Degel party also lost 25 votes due to similar disqualifications.

The Supreme Court decided in favor of "Choosing Afula" and overturned the disqualification of those slips. This pushed "Choosing Afula" past Degel by just 2 votes.

The article does not say if fraud was involved in the disqualification of the relevant ballots, but that seems to be the implication (at least to me).

MK Moshe Gafni (UTJ) responded by saying its already clear to everyone that the court is conspiring against the Haredi community.. and pointed to Bet Shemesh as the prime example..

The Israeli electoral system really needs to be reformed and to go to some form of digital or electronic voting. This voter slip situation is a complete mess - besides for the possibility of fraud, which will surely remain in one form or another in electronic voting as well, there is just too much room to mess up with this archaic system of paper ballots. Even if they insist on continuing to use non-electronic voting, the system needs to be changed away from the type of ballot slips currently used..

of course this won't resolve anti-haredi bias by the courts, but regardless of that the election system is ridiculous and needs to be changed...