Polls open as Israelis pick PM, Knesset
Election Day gets underway as 6.3 million eligible voters cast their ballots at more than 10,000 locations; voting closes at 10pm in most polling stations, with the final results expected Thursday
The polls opened across Israel at 7am on Tuesday morning as the country began voting on the make up of the next Knesset - and the prime minister to lead it.
The polling stations were to remain open until 10pm, allowing some 6.3 million eligible voters to cast a ballot at more than 10,000 locations.
The exceptions to these hours are at hospitals, jails and small communities with fewer than 350 residents, where the polls will be open from 8am until 8pm.
Some 17,000 thousands of police forces were to be deployed throughout the country, with Israeli military imposing a general closure on the West Bank and the border crossings into the Gaza Strip.
IDF soldiers also began voting on Saturday evening at bases around the country.
The votes of soldiers, hospital patients, inmates, women in shelters, election officials and diplomats in foreign countries - known collectively in Hebrew as "double envelopes" - are counted last.
Votes are cast in Israel by paper ballot only, so as to minimize the potential for cyber attacks on the electoral process.
While in some countries voting is compulsory, in Israel it is optional. Election Day, however, is considered a national holiday in order to facilitate the electoral process.
In order to vote, Israelis have to produce an ID card, a valid driving licence or passport. Voters present their identification at the relevant polling station, and are handed an envelope in which they will place their ballot. They then go behind a screen and select a slip of paper representing the party for which they wish to vote.
The slip of paper is placed in the envelope, which is then sealed and dropped into the ballot box that is supervised by election officials at each station. Voters must take care to ensure that they do not place two slips and invalidate their vote.
Once the polling stations are closed, the elections committee members in each station count all the notes manually and note how many votes each party list received. This number is then compared to the number of eligible voters in each ballot box.
The verified results are submitted to the chairman of each Regional Elections Committee, and are then fed into a computer and forwarded directly to the Central Elections Committee.
The final results will be announced on Thursday morning, when the CEC is expected to finish counting all votes, including the double envelopes.
