Minister of Innovation, Science and Technology of Israel Gila Gamliel said today in an interview that the electoral system in Israel is problematic in that it gives exaggerated power to small parties and we must change the electoral system and we should do it now. 

According to Kol Hai News, Minister Benny Gantz is planning to present some electoral reform laws after discussing the issues with experts from the Israeli Democracy Institute.

Finance Minister Avigdor Liberman yesterday floated a crazy proposal.

Here it comes. the law for direct elections that was discussed last night has been proposed. it is amazing how they can talk about the need for electoral reform for years, even decades, and do absolutely nothing about it, but when Netanyahu needs it to help him, they can come up with a detailed plan in five minutes.

So tonight an idea was floated to "solve" the political deadlock.

Gideon Saar, head of the Tikva Chadasha (New Hope) party, announced some of the electoral reform agenda his party plans to push.

Tomorrow is election day.

I propose (as suggested by one of my boys) that if this political stalemate is not resolved this time around, next time we have a national boycott of the elections. Nobody should vote.

That would throw everything into chaos and upend the entire system. We need electoral reform, but not a single party is talking about it in any significant way.

In the meantime, go vote. For whichever party you prefer. Just go vote.

MK Miki Zohar (Likud) has presented to law proposals to the Knesset today for voting. One law is to shorten the amount of time required from the time elections are called until the date elections are actually held. The current law says elections will be held 90 days from the date elections were officially ordered.

Miki Zohar says considering the current circumstances with two elections having passed and still no government is functioning, we need to lessen the amount of time it takes to get a government back up and functioning. Zohar has proposed that elections be held in just 45 days from when elections are called, cutting the campaigning time in half.

I think he could cut it down even more. Most campaigning is done in the last two weeks before the elections anyway. In addition, he should propose cutting down the amount of time given the different nominees to try to form a government. Time and again we see them just wasting a lot of time and playing hard to get and only talking serious in crunch time, in the last few days.

The second proposal Zohar is submitting is to cancel the national holiday status of election day.

Zohar says this is too damaging to the economy, especially when we have had two, and possibly three, elections in one year, and has not been proven to push up the voting percentages.

In actuality, Zohar probably is basing this on the historically higher turnout among Right voters and lower among Left and turning it into a regular workday will discourage people from voting (they will be busy, at work, etc) and the Left might be hurt (in his assumption) more than the Right, giving the right an advantage.

I like the national vacation day. It would be a shame to lose it. Israel has a pretty high voter turnout, so maybe the vacation day does help. Another option would be Liebermans proposal to require citizens to vote, though I am not sure how that works and what happens if someone does not vote and how enforceable this is.

The golden rule is that if a politician wants to make changes to the electoral system, it is somehow only meant to benefit him and his party. Whether my guess/assumption is right or wrong, I am sure Zohar is asking these proposals because he thinks it will help him and the Likud

MK Oded Furer (Yisrael Beyteynu) wants to quickly pass a law changing the election period from 90 days down to 60 days, considering all the recent elections makes 90 days really unnecessary.

Personally, I would suggest cutting it down to 30 days, since anyway 80% of the campaigning is done in the final two weeks before elections. Even 30 days is more than enough time for the politicians to prepare.

As well, as part of any reform, they should do away with the final 21 days of coalition forming. If two months was not enough, the 21 days seems unnecessary to me and just more wasted time.

Too bad it is likely other MKS wont cooperate with Furer and push the law through. Right now his party, Yisrael Beyteynu, is the one everyone will want to punish...

This method of elections and then party leaders recommending to the President who they want as PM, the President basing an appointment on that, and then the PM-select trying to form a coalition before the mandate is given to someone else, is a bit ridiculous. It has become a game of sorts, as each one tries to game the system, to manipulate the game in his favor.

Right now each candidate, Gantz and Netanyahu, is trying to avoid being selected by President Rivlin as the one to try to form a coalition firast. The thought is that the first one to be given the chance will almost definitely fail. On each side there is a relatively strong bloc standing in the way of a coalition. Something dramatic would really have to happen for someone to cross sides. The second person, after the first fails, will possibly have a slightly better chance, because if he fails the country goes to elections again, so the pressure goes up to avoid that. There is more of a chance of someone crossing sides for the second person than for the first. At least that si the current thought.

So, each candidate is now positioning himself to have less recommendations and have less of a chance of being selected first.

To that end, last night it was revealed that Deputy Minister Litzman was recorded at a Gur event in which he said he has a trick up his sleeve and he is coordinating it with Netanyahu. They are considering the possibility of UTJ not recommending Netanyahu to Rivlin today. This would cause Netanyahu to have less recommendations than Gantz, almost ensuring Rivlin appoints Gantz to the first crack at forming a coalition.

After that was revealed, the heads of the United Arab List sent a letter to President Rivlin amending their recommendation from earlier in the day. Earlier in the day the members of the UAL had recommended Gantz to the President. They did so knowing they will not join a future coalition - they said so explicitly - but that this was a decision they took in order to do what they could to take advantage of an opportunity to remove Netanyahu from office and maybe from politics in general. They later sent a letter to Rivlin saying that their recommendation was only in the name of 10 of their MKs rather than all 13, as the BALAD faction of 3 MKs is not recommending Gantz. Taking away those 3 recommendations would knock Gantz below Netanyahu for that first appointment, even if UTJ doesnt recommend Netanyahu.

That being the case, I would have liked to see UTJ recommend Gantz for PM. Why not? The recommendation means nothing anyway regarding a future coalition and this would help them bump Gantz up for the first appointment.

At the end of the day, we'll see what happens and who decides what. This morning in prctice UTJ recommended Netanyahu, despite their considerations. Maybe it was just a bluff or maybe they had other reasons for this decision. I think these games are silly. Each of the two candidates should want the first appointment. If one of them wants the second and then the first succeeds, the other will kick himself for the missed opportunity. Take it and run with it.

The system needs to be changed, at least somewhat. This deadlock is not good for the country, politically or socially. We should minimally go back to the double ballot system with each voter having a vote for party and for PM, if not even greater reform.

The Likud is putting together a new plan to reform the elections, presumably for their benefit. The proposal they are preparing, according to Maariv Online, is to raise the minimum threshold for a party to 7%, from the relatively new level of 3.25% it currently sits at.

All the "small" parties in Knesset will be affected by this, including Meretz, Yisrael Beyteynu, UTJ and Shas. If the proposal should ever pass, these parties would have to form deals and mergers with other parties, the way UAL parties all got together, they way Livni formed a bloc with Labor, and the way Tekuma has been hanging together with Habayit Hayehudi. Shas and UTJ would most likely merge, Meretz would have to make a deal with Labor, or maybe with the United Arab List. Yisrael Beyteynu with Habayit Hayehudi, or Yesh Atid or Kulanu Kachlon or Likud - depending on whom they are at peace with or fighting with on any given day.. Of course any of the existing parties might become threatened by this law or might be protected by this law, depending on when it is brought up - as each party grows and shrinks as per the whims and trends of the voters.

MK Sharren Kaskell (Likud) is behind the preparation of this proposal, and the purpose is to create more political stability. With tens of thousands going to waste, people will presumably vote for parties they think are likely to pass the threshold, and no longer vote for the really small parties that seem to crop up every election cycle and then disappear and cause all those votes to be wasted.

Haskel says she expects that this proposal will cause the end effect of their remaining just five political entities - two large parties, one centrist party, one Arab party and one Right-Religious party.

Haskel is optimistic, but I don't see how she is going to get her party's coalition partners to agree to pass a law that will effectively put themselves out of business. That is why electoral reform has to be done by an external body.

The Central Election Committee has decided to recommend a law proposal to the Knesset that would allow people to vote wherever they are, sort of, rather than only in the "kalfi" (ballot box) associated with their address as listed in their teudat zehut.

A person will be able to declare in advance that on election day he will be located at a different address than his officially registered address. If he does so and declares his temporary location until up to 74 days prior to the elections, he will be able to vote from that location.
source: Maariv

If this law passes it will mean the parties or activists will no longer need to scramble to arrange rides and transportation for people all over the country, such as students and yeshiva bochurim, elderly people located in assisted-living centers and others, to bring them back home to vote. As long as they declare where they will be, they will be able to vote from that location.

Obviously this wont help too many individuals, as most people cannot declare where they will be 74 days from any specific day, but students and the like who are living in places other than their homes for long periods of time would benefit from this.

So many people are upset and disturbed about the impending deal to get Yisrael Beyteynu to join the government coalition with the offer of the Defense Ministry for Avigdo Lieberman.

From one perspective, the views he has regularly espoused in the past has people worried about what he might do, but also even before he does anything, the further isolation his appointment will cause as the Western world is repulsed by him and his statements. Let us not forget - when Lieberman was Foreign Minister he was basically banned form Western countries and spent most of his efforts in Eastern European countries, while Netanyahu dealt with the Western countries.

From a second perspective, the way he has spoken about Netanyahu over the past year and a half, at least, and his repeated refusals to even consider joining the coalition, makes it surprising that he was offered this now and that he is accepting.

From a third perspective, thi sis what he initially demanded to join the government after the previous elections. Netanyahu refused to give it to him back then, so why now?

Personally I think Lieberman's bark is worse than his bite. He thinks he is a tough guy like Putin who can roll tanks over anyone he does not like and get away with it, but what has Lieberman ever done to deserve that comparison. All he does is talk big. it is easy to talk when the keys to the tank are not in your hands. I suspect he might try something, somewhat minor, pretty early on, but will get handcuffed and reprimanded by Netanyahu and others, and that will put an end to that.

What does bother me about this is what it shows about the political system and, again, the need for reforming the electoral system. Whether Netanyahu did this out of desperation to save a failing coalition or out of strategic maneuvering for the future or out of sheer responsibility to the country, this is a symptom of a bad system. He could only do this because of the bad electoral and parliamentary system we function in. And until the politicians change the system, these types of maneuvers will continue to happen. Netanyahu is not the first to lay with strange bedfellows in order to stabilize a coalition, and he won't be the last - unless the politicians change the system.

MK Yaakov Margi (Shas) has proposed a law that would lower the voting age in national elections to 17 instead of the current 18.

In his proposal Margi explains that the need for lowering the voting age is due to the low voter turnout in the lats elections (which is not true). The youth in Israel have strong interest in politics and allowing their participation would improve the turnout rate.

The Machon Lademocratiya is not opposed to the law, though it did issue an opinion that points out that almost no other country has such a young voting age.

Margi has so far been able to draw wide support for his proposal
source: BHOL

Is this a smart move by Margi? In the long term it looks like something Shas might benefit from. With about 30% of students today in Haredi schools, and of those a significant majority are probably in Shas-affiliated schools, this seems to give Shas, and Haredim in general, an edge in any given election in the future, even though in the short term it might not help them any more than any other specific party.

Also, Haredi voters have higher turnouts than general population voters, so getting more Haredi voters into the system will also help the Haredi parties in general, even short-term.

What other reaosn would there be?

I saw an article yesterday expressing the sentiment that all those people who decided (especially those who switched votes in the last few days of the elections) to vote Likud instead of Habayit Hayehudi - it is their fault the Oren Hazzan got into the Knesset rather than Shuli Muallam. Hazzan, besides for his initial lousy behavior, is now mired in a crazy scandal being exposed from the time he spent managing a casino in Bulgaria, clearly not worthy for being a public representative (if he is guilty)... while Shuli Muallam is a person who has good character (even if you don't necessarily agree with her politics, you cannot deny her character and qualifications) and is a worthy public servant.

I say that this is another fault of the lousy electoral system we have, and not the fault of anybody who chose to vote Likud over any other party.

Israel does not have representative elections or government. People vote for a party because they agree, more or less, with its platform, and/or because they like some of the candidates running in the party more than they like the platform or candidates of other parties.

As a Likud voter, I have no way of knowing that my vote is about to help #30 or #25 or #50 get into the Knesset. I don't reject a list because someone in a seemingly unrealistic spot is on the list with a slight chance of getting in, if I even know anything about him. When I vote Likud I am not choosing between Oren Hazzan and Shuli Muallam. If anything at all I am at most choosing between Benjamin Netanyahu and Naftali Bennet, and maybe you can add a few more of the higher profile names of each party in the list of considerations. Even though I voted Likud, Oren Hazzan does not represent me, just like the other Likud MKs do not. They might represent some of the ideals I believe to be important, but they do not represent me.

So, people who voted Likud did not choose between oren Hazzan and Shuli Muallam. The Likud should be vetting its candidates, as all parties should be, and Oren Hazzan should never have been allowed to happen, but it is not the public's fault that it did..

Electoral reform that will include direct representation, at least in some form, could possibly change that in the future. If I could vote for specific candidates, I would maybe (note the "maybe") choose to vote for some Likud candidates, some Habayit Hayehudi candidates, some UTJ candidates, and some from other parties as well.

I would be happy if the law in Israel would be changed to say that someone who was convicted of a crime (it could be limited to crimes of public trust or crimes with "kalon" - disgrace or moral turpitude (whatever that is), or some qualification so we don't have the government rounding up and convicting people on minor offenses just to keep them out of politics) will not be allowed to serve in government.

I would like that, and I think it is a good law to have.

However, right now we do not have such a law. Just the opposite. The current law allows anyone to run for office. Even a criminal, if he has served his time, he can fully rejoin society in every way. Even if he was tagged with moral turpitude on his crime, if he waits out the waiting period, after that he ca run for office or do anything else he might want to do.

If you think running for office presents an ethical problem, change the law to say such a person cannot run for office.

I don't get Yehuda Weinstein saying that Deri can legally be made a minister but he would have a difficult time defending such an appointment in the Supreme Court on ethical grounds.

Legally he is allowed to be appointed as a minister, so what's the problem?

You don't like it, and I don't, work to get the law changed.  Weinstein should be pressing the government to change the law to better deal with such situations in the future. Deri should be allowed to serve now. It is a failure of our electoral system, but if that is the way it is, it is wrong to single him out and punish him more when he has already served his time. The entire electoral system needs to be reformed, and this is just part of it.

The news in Israel has gotten so boring recently. I guess we should all be thankful for that. no news is good news.

The coalition building continues, with each party trying to squeeze as much as possible out of Netanyahu, and holding out with threats until what looks like the coming last minute. Every couple of hours there are new headlines about crises in negotiations with a party that until now looked ready to sign, and then headlines come out contradicting the previous headlines. It is all spin, and nothing is to be believed, until it is all over. The headlines and statements issued are there to put pressure on the Likud, Netanyahu, other parties, and none of it is to be believed.

Nepal is devastating. The place is in utter shambles. The count of deaths has risen dramatically, while the search and rescue teams continue their work. Israel is busy evacuating Israelis at the same time it has teams helping with search and rescue, while other countries have basically abandoned their people in Nepal and only sent small teams with a bit of aid and assistance.

Syria, ISIS, Hillary, Jeb, Rubio, coalitions, Baltimore riots, blah blah blah.

It is all the same, all the time, all over again. I look at the news and see nothing interesting. The most interesting news item happens to be the decision taken by MLB to play the Chicago White Sox vs Baltimore Orioles game in an empty stadium, not open to the public.

We need to get the government back up and running so that they can start producing crazy news again!

I'm so sick of this system of horsetrading, where the small parties hold the Likud hostage to the point that the large party gets mostly scraps and has to sweat for so long that I would really like to see a unity government that will deal with electoral reform. Electoral reform will not be on the agenda of any small party, as the necessary reform would only hurt, at least in their perception, them, so it can only be done through a unity government.

The reform I think I'd like to see is now a combination of sorts. I've said before that we should move to a system more similar to a presidential system like the United States has. I understand some of the concerns. I think instead now that it should be some sort of hybrid.

There should be candidates who declare that they are running for Prime Minister. Anybody can compete (within regulations - age, nationality, number of signatures of support, whatever).

Separately, parties can run for Knesset.

The relationship between the winner of the prime ministerial race and the results of the Knesset race need not be an issue - there should not be a government coalition. No more horse trading, no more appointments just to form a government. The Prime Minister should have the power, and the Knesset should function as lawmakers, similar to Parliament and Congress in other countries. The PM can appoint people from other parties to his cabinet and to ministerial positions, should he so desire, and he might want to as parts of deal for support in knesset to get laws and public policy passed, but it will not affect the formation of a government, as there will be no such thing.

Checks and balances should be put in place, so power is not abused.

I don't like the current electoral system, and I believe it should be changed. However, I do not like the idea of changing it, like any law, just to help or hurt a specific person. It should be changed in order to provide a more stable and efficient system of governance, not to promote a specific candidate, help his chances, or hurt a candidate's chances.

That si why I do not like the new proposal by MK Amir Peretz (Hatnua).

Peretz is worried that in the current electoral system, Naftali Bennet has a reasonable chance to become Prime Minister of Israel. In some constellation, his party could become the largest party, and then he would be appointed to hobble together a coalition. In a direct electoral system, where the people have to vote for the specific prime ministerial candidate, Bennet does not have a chance, according to Amir Peretz. The assumption being that the 20% support he has is his limit, or close to it, and that's not nearly enough to win enough votes to become prime minister.

So, Peretz is working to change the electoral system back to the one in which elections for prime minister are direct elections.
source: Srugim

To remind you, this was done before and deemed a total failure. It accomplished the exact opposite of what its goals were. It was mean to be the first stage of an overall change to full direct elections and thereby create more stable government, with the small parties being knocked out entirely and more power given to the large parties. The direct elections effected in reality a situation in which people could vote for their preferred candidate, and still support their preferred party, and they gave even more power to the small parties. When the large parties suffered from the change, they quickly reversed the decision and went back to the old system. What I think they should have done is go immediately to stage  and complete the electoral reform, but they didn't.

So, Amir Peretz, because he wants to hurt the chances of one potential candidate, wants to change the entire electoral system to one that everybody already admitted was an even worse system.

It is also interesting that he thinks Bennet's chances of becoming prime minister are good enough that this must be done.

The minimum threshold for Knesset had been adjusted a number of times over the years, eventually being raised to the current 2%, and recently attempts were made to bump it up to 4%. It is thought that raising the threshold would make the government more stable by ridding the government of small parties that end up wielding more power than they should naturally have, giving them the ability to make "unreasonable" demands.

MK Yaakov Litzman (UTJ) just proposed a bill by which the threshold would move in the opposite direction. Litzman would do away with the threshold entirely. Litzman believes, it seems, in evolution and natural selection, and believes that the natural threshold would do a better job at keeping the government stable and small parties out.

Litzman says that the threshold should be natural - take all the valid votes from the elections, divide by 120 (number of Knesset seats), and whichever parties garnered enough votes to reach that number would get the appropriate number of seats based on votes. Litzman even says that history has shown that raising the minimum threshold repeatedly has not stopped small parties form getting in, nor has it made the government more stable.

Doing away with the minimum threshold would also increase the number of voters, as votes would not be thrown away. All valid votes would be counted and used towards determining actual Knesset seats. This would better empower the voter, and the results of elections would be a truer reflection of the voters will.
(source: Bechadrei)

I see the benefit to Litzman's proposal, as far as ensuring people's votes actually count, but a. it has no chance of passing as it goes against the trend of the government and won't be likely to garner support and b. since the electoral system is lousy anyway, the way the parliamentary system works here, this is an exercise in futility. Nothing will improve the system until they make regional voting with a two party system.