It's more than a glitch

The glitches that disrupted the Likud primary election on Sunday were an indication of faulty conduct within the ruling party. Israel has seen its fair share of primary elections. The Likud weren't the first to discover computers and other vote counting machines. The bottleneck outside the polls on Sunday was a direct result of the Israeli "trust me, it will be okay" mentality, which we all hoped had disappeared by now.

What happened? How can it be that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, or someone on his behalf, didn't check the voting equipment in advance? Was there a rehearsal? It is odd that there was no plan B. The claim that computer hackers had infiltrated the system and disrupted the voting process also isn't convincing. The party should have been prepared for such a possibility, rather than cut corners like it did.

This delay was an affront to Likud voters, causing a lot of them anguish and forcing them to wait long hours. Most importantly, these problems played into the hands of the strong candidates, because they have the money and the surplus of activists, while the candidates with fewer resources were left powerless the longer the vote was delayed. They had to rely on the good will of others. It wasn't fair, and it could distort the results.

This crisis had one positive point though: the delay gave the people time to really focus on a letter, written by State Comptroller Yosef Shapira to Attorney-General Yehuda Weinstein, warning that Likud MK Haim Katz was using government resources to influence the elections in his party. That was a warning signal indicating that something is rotten in the entire system, and it is not only the computers.

Was justice done? Not in the eyes of the losers who lost their political dreams to computer disruptions. We mustn't rule out the possibility that among those disappointed people will be some who will petition the High Court of Justice seeking protection from the computers' dictatorship. Such a move would only hurt the ruling party's image.

One thing is clear: Likud cannot ignore the crisis now that it has somehow extricated itself. This is not something that can be allowed to slide. Someone high up in the Likud mechanism needs to be fired.

Now all eyes are turned toward the upcoming Labor primary election, scheduled for Thursday. If things go wrong there, the double mishap will become a farce.

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