More than 307,000 votes cast in Tuesday’s Israeli elections went to parties that failed to cross the electoral threshold, effectively leaving over 5% of voters without representation in the new Knesset. A detailed analysis of the results has revealed that while those lost votes could have shifted several seats between the political blocs, they would not have resolved Israel’s parliamentary deadlock. However, votes cast for two small chareidi parties that failed to enter the Knesset could have given Shas an additional seat.
According to official Central Elections Committee figures examined by Kikar HaShabbat, 307,958 votes were cast for 25 parties that did not reach the 3.25% electoral threshold required to enter the Knesset. Those votes represented approximately 5.41% of all valid ballots, equivalent to roughly seven Knesset seats.
The largest number of wasted votes went to the Reservists and Economic Party, headed by Yoaz Hendel and Yaron Zelekha, which received 154,950 votes, or 2.72% of the total. Despite attracting substantial support, the party fell short of the threshold and secured no representation.
The Amcha Yisrael party, led by former senior IDF officer Ofer Winter, finished second among the unsuccessful lists, receiving 95,663 votes, or 1.68%.
Four other parties received more than 5,000 votes but failed to win seats. The chareidi party Tzeva Shachor–Magen Olam HaTorah received 11,274 votes, while HaTzibur HaChareidi, headed by Motti Leitner, attracted 10,594 votes. The Noam party, led by Avi Maoz, received 9,923 votes, and Tzomet Beit Yisrael obtained 5,710.
Together, approximately 133,000 votes associated with right-wing and chareidi parties were lost, while roughly 155,000 votes went to parties generally identified with the opposition bloc, including the Hendel-Zelekha list.
However, the analysis cautioned that Hendel’s party also appealed to voters from the more moderate right, making it difficult to assign all its supporters definitively to either political camp.
Using Israel’s Bader-Ofer seat allocation formula, which determines how Knesset seats are distributed among parties that cross the electoral threshold, Kikar HaShabbat recalculated the results under several hypothetical scenarios.
The calculations incorporated the five surplus-vote agreements signed between parties ahead of the election and examined how the results might have changed if votes cast for unsuccessful parties had instead gone to established parties within their respective political blocs.
The actual election results gave Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s bloc 53 seats, the opposition bloc identified with Gadi Eisenkot 48 seats, and the Arab parties a combined 19 seats. Of the Arab parties’ representation, Ra’am secured eight seats, while the Joint List received 11.
Had all the wasted votes from right-wing and chareidi parties been transferred to parties within Netanyahu’s bloc, the prime minister’s camp would have increased its representation from 53 to 55 seats. The opposition bloc would have fallen to 47, while the Arab parties would have received 18.
Conversely, if the 154,950 votes cast for Hendel and Zelekha had gone to parties within the opposition bloc, Netanyahu’s camp would have dropped to 52 seats, while the opposition would have risen to 50. The Arab parties would have held 18 seats, with Ra’am receiving seven and the Joint List retaining 11.
If both sets of wasted votes had been redirected to their respective political blocs, Netanyahu’s camp would have finished with 53 seats, the opposition with 49, and the Arab parties with 18.
Even under the extreme hypothetical scenario in which every wasted vote, regardless of political affiliation, had gone to right-wing parties, Netanyahu’s bloc would have reached only 57 seats, still four short of the 61 required for a parliamentary majority.
The analysis therefore concluded that the wasted votes, while significant, were not ultimately responsible for the inconclusive election outcome.
One finding, however, has particular significance for the chareidi political world.
The two unsuccessful chareidi lists, Tzeva Shachor and HaTzibur HaChareidi, together received 21,868 votes. Had those voters supported Shas or United Torah Judaism instead, the combined chareidi representation in the Knesset would have increased from 13 seats to 14.
More remarkably, the additional seat would have gone to Shas regardless of how those votes were divided between the two established chareidi parties.
According to the calculations, the surplus-vote agreement between Shas and United Torah Judaism would have resulted in the additional mandate being awarded to Shas even if every one of those 21,868 voters had cast a ballot for United Torah Judaism.
The analysis examined all 21,869 possible ways of dividing the votes between the two parties and found that the result remained unchanged in every scenario.
In each case, Shas would have gained an additional seat at the expense of Ra’am, increasing the chareidi parties’ combined strength to 14 mandates.
The finding is especially noteworthy following Shas’s disappointing election performance, which saw the party lose a substantial portion of its previous electoral support.
It also highlights the consequences of the emergence of alternative chareidi political lists that challenged the established parties during the election campaign but ultimately failed to cross the electoral threshold.
The broader coalition calculations present a different challenge for the opposition.
Even if the votes cast for Hendel’s party had gone to the opposition bloc, Eisenkot and his political allies would still have been unable to form a majority government without support from Arab parties.
Under the actual results, the opposition bloc’s 48 seats combined with Ra’am’s eight would produce only 56 seats, five short of a majority.
In the scenario in which Hendel’s votes were redirected to opposition parties, the bloc would hold 50 seats, while Ra’am would have seven, producing a combined total of 57.
Ra’am previously participated in the Bennett-Lapid coalition established in 2021, demonstrating that its participation in an Israeli governing coalition is politically possible. Nevertheless, the party’s support alone would not provide Eisenkot with the necessary parliamentary majority.
The Joint List presents a different calculation.
If Hendel’s votes had strengthened the opposition to 50 seats, the Joint List’s 11 mandates could theoretically provide the 61 votes needed for a majority.
However, such an arrangement would likely depend on outside parliamentary support rather than full participation in the government, raising questions about whether a stable coalition could be established.
Yisrael Beiteinu chairman Avigdor Lieberman has already declared that he would not support a government dependent on the Joint List, creating a substantial political obstacle to that possibility.
Under the actual election results, the opposition bloc and Ra’am together hold 56 seats, while the opposition and Joint List together have 59. Neither combination reaches a majority.
The analysis found that the various scenarios involving wasted votes generally shifted only one or two seats between the competing blocs, without fundamentally changing the political equation.
The central obstacle to forming a government is therefore the overall distribution of votes among the parties that successfully entered the Knesset, rather than the ballots cast for parties that failed to qualify.
The uncertainty surrounding the election outcome has also attracted attention from international financial institutions.
Credit rating agency Fitch warned that the results could lead to an extended period of political uncertainty and governmental paralysis, potentially complicating Israel’s ability to address pressing economic and policy challenges.
For the chareidi parties, however, the calculations offer a particularly painful conclusion: While the hundreds of thousands of wasted votes nationwide did not determine who could form the next government, the relatively small number of votes cast for two unsuccessful chareidi lists was enough to cost Shas an additional Knesset seat.
{Matzav.com}
