Elections in Israel

[6] Early elections can be called by a vote of the majority of Knesset members and normally occur on occasions of political stalemate and of the inability of the government to get the parliament's support for its policies.

Failure to get the annual budget bill approved by the Knesset by March 31 (3 months after the start of the fiscal year) also leads automatically to early elections.

Israel uses the closed-list method of party-list proportional representation;[7] thus citizens vote for their preferred party and not for any individual candidates.

Polling stations in small communities with fewer than 350 residents, hospitals, and prisons are open between 8:00 AM and 8:00 PM.

[11] Special polling stations are set up in hospitals, prisons, diplomatic missions abroad, military bases, women's shelters, and Israeli ships to enable medical professionals, patients, diplomats and their families, Jewish Agency staff abroad, soldiers, prison inmates and staff, sailors, and residents of women's shelters to vote.

Once a regular polling station closes, officials at the polling station count the votes and send a document recording the results and the ballot box with the ballot slips inside it to one of 25 vote counting centers nationwide, where the documents are checked for any irregularities, then entered into the Central Elections Committee's software system, a closed system not connected to the Internet, and rechecked.

Any irregularities detected by the software are brought to the attention of a district court judge present at the station throughout the vote counting process, who adjudicates all such cases.

One team checks the identification details in the outer envelope against the list of voters at the person's assigned polling station to see if their name has been crossed out, which would mean that they had voted twice.

Any Israeli citizen over 21 may be elected to the Knesset, except holders of several high positions in the civil service and officers or career soldiers (those should resign from their post before the elections), soldiers in compulsory service, and felons who were convicted and sentenced to prison terms exceeding three months (until seven years after their prison term expired).

[6] That member has up to 42 days to negotiate with the different parties, and then present his or her government to the Knesset for a vote of confidence.

That individual then has a prescribed amount of time to form a new coalition, and new elections are called if this attempt is not successful (known as a constructive vote of no confidence).

[15] In 1992, in an attempt to produce more stable governments, Israel adopted a system of direct election of the Prime Minister.

On election day, and upon entry to a polling station, the voter is given an official envelope, and shown to a voting booth.

Israel does not employ electronic voting due to fears that elections could be vulnerable to cyber threats from those trying to influence the results.