Israeli voters choose a party list, not a district candidate; valid votes are allocated into Knesset mandates.
Israel elects its 120-seat Knesset in a single nationwide district. Every vote, from Metula to Eilat, counts identically toward the same 120 seats: there are no regional districts to draw and no electoral college. Every list that clears the threshold wins seats in proportion to its share of the vote.
Sources:123Each party submits a ranked list of candidates to the Central Elections Committee before election day; this year only two, Likud and The Democrats, use primaries open to party members to rank theirs. Win 14 seats and the top 14 names on the list become Members of Knesset. The system is called closed-list proportional representation.
Sources:1234Voting is entirely on paper. Behind the screen sits a tray of printed slips, one per list. The voter picks exactly one, places it in the official envelope, and drops it into the ballot box in full view of the polling committee. No voting machines and nothing to hack: only what comes out of the ballot box is counted, by hand.
Sources:1234Every list runs under a short combination of Hebrew letters, approved by the Central Elections Committee and printed on its slip, and the letters need not spell the party's name: this year Likud is מחל, Shas is שס and Yisrael Beytenu is ל. Parties in the outgoing Knesset have first claim on the letters they used last time, and this year's slips carry each list's letters and name in Hebrew and Arabic.
Sources:1234A list must win at least 3.25% of the valid national vote, roughly four seats, to enter the Knesset at all. Votes for lists that fall short are excluded when seats are computed, which pushes small parties to run together on joint lists.
Sources:1234Seats are apportioned by the Bader-Ofer method, Israel's version of the D'Hondt highest-averages formula, which slightly favors larger lists. Pairs of lists may sign surplus-vote agreements that pool their leftover votes, improving their chances of winning an extra seat.
Sources:1234The Central Elections Committee administers the vote: representatives of the Knesset factions, chaired by a sitting Supreme Court justice. It approves the candidate lists, runs more than 12,000 polling stations countrywide, where rival parties' representatives watch one another, counts every envelope, and certifies the result.
Sources:123456Every Israeli government so far has been a coalition of more than one faction, so the election is only half the story. Once results are published, the President consults every elected party and charges the Member of Knesset with the best chance of assembling a coalition with forming the government, which must then win a vote of confidence in the Knesset.
Sources:123The voting routine is simple, paper-based, and designed to preserve a secret ballot.
Every Israeli citizen who is 18 or older on election day may vote. There is no separate voter sign-up: the register is drawn automatically from the Population Registry 54 days before election day, so a citizen listed there with an Israeli address by that date (3 September 2026 for this election) is on it.
Tip: There is no general absentee voting — plan to be physically in Israel on election day.
Sources:123456Before the election, a notice listing your assigned polling station is mailed to you, and the Interior Ministry runs an online locator where your ID number and date of birth pull up the address. You vote only at your assigned station, so check it before you head out.
Tip: The notice also says whether your station is accessible to voters with limited mobility; every locality has at least one accessible station, and a voter who can't physically manage the ballot may bring one companion behind the screen.
Sources:123456The polling committee identifies you against the register before you receive an envelope. An Israeli ID card (teudat zehut, regular or biometric), a valid Israeli passport, or a valid Israeli driver's license does the job; soldiers in regular or career service can use their valid military ID. Originals only: a photocopy or a picture on your phone won't be accepted.
Sources:123Hand over your ID, take the official envelope, and step behind the screen by yourself. Choose exactly one slip, place it in the envelope, and drop it into the ballot box in front of the committee. There is no need to seal the envelope.
Tip: Up to three identical slips count as one vote, but slips from two different parties disqualify the ballot — and so does writing on a printed slip. If your party's tray has run empty, you may write its letters in blue ink on a blank official slip.
Sources:12345Soldiers on base, police officers on duty, hospital patients, prisoners, election-day workers, voters with mobility disabilities (at any specially designated accessible station), residents of women's shelters, sailors on Israeli vessels, and Israeli diplomats posted abroad all vote where they are in a double envelope. The outer one carries the voter's details, so the Committee can confirm nobody voted twice before the anonymous inner envelope joins the national count.
Sources:123456Election day is a paid day of rest by law, and most polls stay open from 7 in the morning until 10 at night (localities with 350 voters or fewer vote 8 to 8). Intercity buses on routes over 15 km and Israel Railways trains run free from the evening before until service ends on election day, so voters can travel back to where they're registered. And by Basic Law a regular election falls on a Tuesday in the Hebrew month of Cheshvan: this year, Tuesday 27 October.
Sources:12345New immigrants vote as citizens, with practical rules worth checking before election day.
Under the Nationality Law, every oleh who arrives under the Law of Return becomes an Israeli citizen from the day of aliyah: no waiting period, no naturalization exam, no ceremony to schedule. The voters' register is drawn 54 days before election day (3 September 2026 for this election); if you're in the Population Registry with an Israeli address by then and 18 or older on election day, you vote in the very next election, on identical terms to a ninth-generation Jerusalemite.
Sources:12345Getting your ID card is one of the first post-landing errands: most olim receive a temporary teudat zehut on arrival, valid for three months, then book an appointment with the Population and Immigration Authority for the biometric card, which is delivered to your home 7 to 10 business days after you apply. Sort it out early: that card (or an Israeli passport or driver's license) is what you show at the polling station.
Sources:1234The slips in the tray show only each list's letters and name (sometimes with its leader's name), with no logos or candidate photos, and this year they're printed in Hebrew and Arabic. Look up your party's letters in advance: it's the one piece of homework the system asks of you.
Sources:1234Unlike most democracies, Israel offers no mail-in or embassy voting for ordinary citizens: with narrow exceptions for state and national-institution staff posted abroad (and their families) and crews of Israeli ships, Israelis can only vote in person in Israel. If you'll be abroad on election day, there is no way to vote remotely, so plan travel around it.
Sources:1234In January 1949 the right to vote rested on registration as a resident, counted in the census of November 1948, not on citizenship, which Israel only legislated in 1952. So immigrants who had registered as residents could help elect the Constituent Assembly.
Sources:1234Municipal elections work differently: the voting age is 17, and permanent residents who are not yet citizens may vote for mayor and city council. That means a 17-year-old can vote in a local election before being old enough to vote for the Knesset.
Sources:123Israel's election system grew from pre-state institutions into one of the world's most participatory parliamentary democracies.
1920
Decades before independence, the Jewish community of the Land of Israel elected its own parliament, the Assembly of Representatives. Women voted in that first election in 1920 and several were elected to it, one of the earliest grants of women's suffrage anywhere: France and Italy waited until the 1940s, and Switzerland until 1971.
Sources:12January 25, 1949
Delayed by the War of Independence, Israel held its first national election on January 25, 1949, for the Constituent Assembly, which two days after first convening turned itself into the First Knesset. Turnout was 86.9%. The franchise was universal from day one: men and women alike voted from age 18 on the basis of residency registration, and Arab residents were on the register.
1951–1988
From the second Knesset election in 1951 through 1988, a list needed just 1% of the vote to win a seat, eleven Knessets in all, and the Knessets elected in 1984 and 1988 each seated 15 lists. Every Israeli government, then as now, has been a coalition of more than one faction.
Sources:12341973
MKs Yohanan Bader (Gahal) and Avraham Ofer (Alignment) rewrote how leftover votes turn into seats, adopting a highest-averages formula that modestly favors larger lists. Every election since has used their math.
Sources:123451992
After the 12th Knesset was elected in 1988 with fifteen lists in the chamber, the threshold was raised for the first time, to 1.5%, for the 1992 election: the first of three increases since the early 1990s in a barrier meant to keep small parties out of the Knesset.
Sources:1234561996–2001
In 1996 and 1999 Israelis cast two ballots, one for Prime Minister and one for a party, and in 2001 they chose a Prime Minister alone. The reform was meant to strengthen the winner; instead voters split their tickets and the big parties shrank while sectoral lists surged. The Knesset repealed direct election in March 2001, and the single party ballot returned at the 2003 election.
2004
The bar for entering the Knesset was lifted again, to 2% of valid votes.
Sources:123March 2014
The threshold jumped to 3.25%, in practice about four seats, with supporters arguing that fewer parties would make the political system more stable. Ahead of the 2015 election it pushed four Arab parties to run on a single joint list, and the same 3.25% bar applies in 2026.
Sources:123452019–2022
Israelis went to the polls five times between April 2019 and November 2022. Every one of those votes was cast on paper and counted by hand, and turnout in the last of them, in November 2022, was 70.63%.
Sources:1234October 27, 2026
Israelis return to the polls to elect the 26th Knesset — the 26th time the country has freely chosen its parliament since 1949. Everything on this page is exactly what a first-time voter needs for that Tuesday.
Sources:1234