Following elections for 20th Knesset a few weeks ago, Yachad party leader Eli Yishai shouted foul, accusing Shas of major voter fraud. Yishai added that after consulting with rabbonim, he was going to take his case to court for he is certain his party should have earned sufficient votes to pass minimum threshold to enter Knesset.
Galei Tzahal (Army Radio) on Monday 24 Nissan reports that there is now documented proof of voter fraud by Shas activists as alleged by Yishai and members of his party. Galei Tzahal released recordings of an activist giving instructions as how to work against Yachad on Election Day to prevent Yishai from entering Knesset. Yishai only feel some 11,000 votes short of entering Knesset.
The recording of the activist includes instructions to remove all of the voting ballots for Yachad so voters cannot vote for the new party and replace the slips with Shas ballots. “They will not find them [the voting ballots] and they can go to hell” the Shas activist tell his colleagues.
Other instructions given by the same person to fellow Shas supporters include marking the Yachad slips instead of removing them, hence rendering them invalid. He explained that the smallest marks on ballot slips will render them invalid so if he takes a stack and fans it so the edges are visible, pen marks along the side would do the trick to render them invalid. These votes would be disqualified when the ballots were tabulated.
YWN-ISRAEL on Election Day reported the arrest of a number of Shas activists for this same type of action. The persons taken into custody admitted to the very same actions described in the Galei Tzahal report. Yishai on Election Day accused Shas of these actions in many areas around Israel.
Yishai accused Shas of an organized effort nationwide to harm his party and Yachad appears to be proceeding with its legal case as it said would be the case.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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7 Responses
so whats the outcome if shas is found guilty? yachad takes their votes away from them?
if the crime is barely punishable (a fine) it doesnt stop it from being done in the future
Doesn’t show well for Sephardim in general
In my opinion, a great punishment to Shas would be to give all of their votes over to Yachad and re-figure out the number of seats that each party should get
Why in the world do they still vote with pieces of paper, we are in the 21st century!
My dear Eli Yishai ,
Is it really worth it?
Will people probably say “a plague on both their houses” ?
Unfair though it may well be,Be noble and do what
Nixon did under worse circumstances in 1960.
The media and forces will be using this the cut the rug from under the what we all have in common
Straight shooter: While what you said is true, electronic voting is easier to commit voter fraud, like in the U.S., where people voted for one particular person and the machine recorded the vote for another. That seems to only go in one direction, hmmm!
The gullibility and responses to articles such as this never cease to amaze me. There is not a shred of evidence to suggest that any party in these elections engaged in impropriety. Nor is there a shred of evidence that any impropriety occurred on any material scale that would have effected the out come. Yachad failed by close to 12000 votes. Not the handful, if any that could have resulted from such episodes.
Hysterical articles such as this are promoted by some correspondents on Arutz Sheva who are blatantly anti Shas and Pro Yachad and to whom impartiality has no meaning.
Yachad failed not because of Shas but because of the late surge to Likud that effected Yachad, Shas and BY.
I also think someone above gave both Deri and Yishai a heavy punch for their disgraceful public squabbling, in the case of the latter it was a knock out , very hurtful, so close and yet so far. Very appropriate for those who besmirched the name of Maran