elections in Israel

Elections in Israel are based on nationwide proportional representation. The electoral threshold is currently set at 3.25%, with the number of seats a party receives in the Knesset being proportional to the number of votes it receives. The Knesset is elected for a four-year term, although most governments have not served a full term and early elections are a frequent occurrence. Israel has a multi-party system based on coalition governments as no party has ever won a majority of seats in a national election, although the Alignment briefly held a majority following its formation by an alliance of several different parties prior to the 1969 elections. Suffrage is universal to all Israeli citizens above the age of 18. Israeli citizens living abroad have to travel to Israel in order to vote. Voting booths are made available on Israeli ships. Elections are overseen by the Central Elections Committee, and are held according to the Knesset Elections Law. Electoral procedure Under normal circumstances, Israel's Basic Law requires national elections for the Knesset to take place on a Tuesday in the Jewish month of Cheshvan (early October through mid-November) four years following the previous elections. However, it is possible, and it often happens, that early elections can take place prior to the date set in the basic law. Early elections can be called by a vote of the majority of Knesset members, or by an edict of the President, 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. It is also possible to postpone the date of the election by a special majority of the Knesset members. Israel uses the closed-list method of party-list proportional representation; thus citizens vote for their preferred party and not for any individual candidates. The 120 seats in the Knesset are then assigned proportionally to each party, provided that the party vote count met the 3.25% electoral threshold. The D'Hondt method is used for marginal votes, slightly favouring the bigger parties. Parties may form electoral alliances and run as a single unified party so as to gain enough collective votes to meet the threshold (if so, the alliance must meet the threshold, not the individual parties) and thus be allocated seats.