UTJ to Appeal Final Vote Count

United Torah Judaism said on Wednesday that it will contest the official final count of last week’s voting, which saw the party drop from a previous tally of 8 Knesset seats to 7.

UTJ fell short of the eighth seat by a mere 68 votes, according to Ynet.

“The short time frame for the decision, the minor difference in votes and the fact there is a lack of important data to determine the final result bring us to consider filing an appeal,” UTJ said in a statement.

UTJ’s loss was Likud’s gain, as the reapportionment gave the latter 32 seats, up from 31. It did not, however, affect the right-religious bloc, which remained overall at 55, one more than Benny Gantz’s 54.

The Central Elections Committee said the amended results came after an investigation uncovered several instances of apparent election fraud mostly in Arab poll stations.