Likud Demands Election Recount

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s Likud party demanded a recount of Monday’s election, just as the final results were released on Thursday afternoon.

In a lawsuit, the Likud sought a review of procedures at every polling station in the country, The Jerusalem Post reported.

The party also demanded that the Central Elections Committee hold off on publishing the figures Thursday, but not in time to prevent the CEE from releasing its figures shortly afterward.

Following a delay for additional checks, the Central Elections Committee released the final results of Monday’s voting, pending formal submission to President Reuven Rivlin next Tuesday.

The tallies were:

Likud: 36

Blue and White: 33

Joint List: 15

Shas: 9

United Torah Judaism: 7

Yisrael Beytenu: 7

Labor-Gesher-Meretz: 7

Yamina: 6

This would appear to leave Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu‏‏’s right-religious bloc with 58 seats, still 3 short of a majority. As such, the possibility of a fourth election round looms.

The delay in releasing the numbers on Thursday was due to additional verification of a number of polling stations and requests for recounts from a number of parties, the ECC said. Reports of contacts between the Likud and opposition MKs to bring at least 3 of them over to the bloc have been denied by Blue and White and Labor.

The committee had initially expected that these final but unofficial results would be published on Wednesday evening, but needed more time because of “a couple of dozen polling stations where we are doing extra checks, in-depth checks, and a few petitions from parties over some of them,” spokesperson Giora Fordes said.