Israeli votes lost at sea

Voting for the 19th Knesset began last week when polling stations opened at 95 Israeli embassies and consulates around the world. In what was a complicated and costly logistical undertaking, voting booths and ballots were transported all the way to Africa, Australia, North America and South-East Asia to missions large and small, along with a precise list of eligible voters: 4,000 serve as official Foreign Ministry representatives, some work for the Jewish Agency for Israel, the World Zionist Organization, the United Jewish Appeal or the Jewish National Fund. They have all made it to the absentee voter registry because they met the legal requirements. Namely, they are "abroad as part of their official capacity," and are employed as a "civil servant." Their spouses and children (aged 20 and under) also enjoy the right to vote abroad.

But despite this extensive effort to set-up polling stations abroad, only 60 percent of those on the special list have exercised their right to vote. The turnout was lower than that of the general population in the last elections (64.7%), even though the voting was conducted at their place of work. You would think official Israeli representatives would serve as an example.

But the most troubling aspect of this process is that hundreds (possibly even thousands) of Israelis who work at the Israeli missions abroad in a whole host of positions are denied the right to vote. These are Israelis who, despite meeting one of the two criteria to qualify for an absentee ballot by serving as "Local Israeli Workers," were not dispatched overseas as part of their job and therefore do not get to vote. These include students who relocated to New York, London, Paris or Vienna and subsequently found a job at the Israeli embassies there. They are usually employed in administrative positions, but they occasionally serve in diplomatic roles in the foreign service. The Israeli missions like to hire such workers because their terms of employment are not as costly and they get lower pay [because their contracts are governed by Israeli labor laws not the local rules]. But why shouldn't they be allowed to vote?

More importantly, dozens (perhaps even hundreds) of Israeli workers who are employed for Israeli companies abroad cannot cast their votes and thereby have to forgo their civic duty. Those who work for Israeli air carriers such as El-Al Israel Airlines Ltd.— pilots, flight attendants, and other cabin crew members — who happen to be on a shift on election day, cannot vote at their foreign destination, because they have not been sent there as official Israeli representatives. The list of non-voters goes on: Israeli students who are pursuing their degrees at foreign institutions; engineers; high-tech entrepreneurs and others who have been stationed or sent abroad as part of their jobs, as well as Israeli tourists. Why should all those people be denied the right to vote? How could the law be so divorced from the Central Elections Committee's efforts to increase voter turnout by flooding the radio and television airwaves and the printed press with ads aimed at driving people to the polls?

Of course, the Central Elections Committee should not be blamed for this situation. It has followed the Knesset Election Law to the letter. But it is incumbent upon our legislators to introduce new legislation that would right this wrong in our law books and let the several thousand Israelis, who are legal residents of Israel, to exercise their most fundamental right if they are abroad on election day. This effort should be championed by the freshmen class that will be sworn-in next month, as these newly minted MKs would supposedly bring with them a tremendous amount of good will and a keen desire to effect change.

I would like to stress that expanding the right to vote by absentee ballot should not apply to Israeli expatriates who have re-settled abroad and have since led their lives and run their businesses from there. Such Israelis should not enjoy the right to participate in Israeli elections since they do not have to pay income tax to the Israeli government and their children are not required to enlist in the IDF or perform reserve duty. Their status is a whole other issue and merits a separate discussion; it relates to core values and morality. But when it comes to Israelis who are based in Israel but happen to be overseas on election day, it just doesn't make any sense, nor is it justifiable, to have them left-out of the democratic process.

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