Overseas Voters Kick Off Knesset Elections

While Election Day is March 2, for Israeli delegations around the world, voting has already begun – and is nearly all over.

More than 5,200 Israelis with voting rights in 96 Israeli delegations around the world, have begun casting their ballots for the elections of the 23rd Knesset.

The first votes were cast by representatives in the Israeli Embassy in Wellington, New Zealand, who voted Tuesday, followed immediately after by the vote of embassy workers in Canberra, Australia.

The voting procedure in the delegations will finish Thursday morning in San Francisco and Los Angeles on the west coast of the United States.

In China, some 160 Israelis were also expected to exercise their right to vote, but due to the spread of the coronavirus, only about 20 of them are actually in the country. These are the Foreign Ministry emissaries who work in the five Israeli delegations operating in the country despite the spread of the coronavirus.

Seemingly, these few thousand votes from across the world might be inconsequential, but at times parties have gained – or lost – a seat by a margin of just a few votes, and these votes might be the ones that make the change.