Israel’s parliamentary election turnout reaches 74.3% by 8 pm
- More than 5.44M voters cast ballots, election committee official says
By Rania Abushamala
ISTANBUL (AA) - Voter turnout in Israel’s parliamentary elections reached 74.3% by 8 pm local time (1800GMT) on Tuesday, the Central Elections Committee said.
A total of 5,449,277 voters had cast their ballots out of 7,331,981 eligible voters, according to the Committee’s acting director general, Din Livne.
Turnout was 8 percentage points higher than at the same time in the previous elections, when it stood at 66.3%. The number of voters who had cast ballots increased by approximately 12%, he said.
Turnout stood at 66.7% at 6 pm, up from 55.7% at 4 pm and 44.9% at 2 pm, according to earlier committee figures.
The committee’s presidium rejected a request by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party to extend voting beyond the scheduled closing time of 10 pm local time (2000 GMT).
Rania R.a. Abushamala