High Court Bars Polling Station Officials From Feeding Real-Time Voter Data to Parties on Election Day

Israel's High Court of Justice ruled on October 22 that polling station officials cannot use digital tools to tally voters in real time and pass that information to political parties on election day, according to a report by The Times of Israel. A three-judge panel split 2-1, with Justices Khaled Kabub and Ruth Ronnen in favor of the ban and Justice David Mintz dissenting; the court said it would release its full reasoning later given the expedited timeline, with the October 27 vote just days away.

The ruling came after Likud asked the Central Election Committee for permission to let party-appointed polling station observers conduct periodic voter counts and relay the data to campaign headquarters to sharpen get-out-the-vote efforts. Committee director Dean Livne had initially approved the request, but the civic watchdog Israel Democracy Guard petitioned against it, pushing the matter to the High Court.

The decision follows a September ruling that already barred real-time transmission of voter identification data to campaigns, part of a broader legal fight over how much access parties can have to election-day information. A former Likud campaign official recently filed a sworn statement warning that a new get-out-the-vote app called "Victory 26" contained features that could allow secret monitoring of polling stations and collection of voter identity data, potentially sidestepping the earlier restriction.

Israel Democracy Guard argued that polling station staff perform "a public, politically neutral role" rather than serving as "an operational arm of political party headquarters," and said the ruling prevents polling stations from becoming real-time intelligence feeds for any campaign.