The ballot slip offers a choice of party. It offers no way to move a candidate up the list or push another down. Across Israel, voters choose from the same lists, with the order of candidates settled before Election Day.
That small piece of paper contains a larger question: how much influence should voters have over the people who represent them, beyond choosing their party?
Israel’s electoral system has roots in the pre-state Yishuv, whose Assembly of Representatives used nationwide proportional party-list elections from 1920. More than a century later, the model hasn’t changed much.
Voters choose a party, which receives seats in the Knesset roughly in proportion to its share of the vote, provided it passes the electoral threshold. This gives different groups a voice in parliament. But voters have no say over the order of candidates on the party list.
Proportional representation still suits Israel’s divided society, said Prof. Gideon Rahat, a political scientist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a senior fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute (IDI). The nationwide district and the way candidates are elected could change.
“These two elements, a closed list system and a nationwide district, are the unique features of the Israeli system,” Rahat said. “Proportional representation is not unique.”
An inherited system
Israel’s first national election, in January 1949, elected a 120-member Constituent Assembly. Mapai won 46 seats, short of a majority. The assembly became the First Knesset the following month, and the electoral arrangements became the basis of the parliamentary system.
The model’s survival also reflected the interests of the parties operating within it. Most wanted to retain proportionality because it offered them their best prospect of representation, Rahat explained. A majoritarian system would have favored the largest party; at the time, that was Mapai.
David Ben-Gurion sought a majoritarian system but failed to secure it. Even his own party was not enthusiastic, Rahat said. In 1958, Basic Law: The Knesset placed the principles of nationwide, equal, secret, and proportional elections on a constitutional footing.
Today, voters elect 120 MKs through party lists. Lists receiving at least 3.25% of valid votes qualify for seats, allocated broadly in proportion to their support. Voters do not separately elect the prime minister; the government must win the Knesset’s confidence.
Every Israeli government formed to date has been a coalition. The prime minister has usually led the largest faction, though that is not a requirement: Naftali Bennett became prime minister in 2021 while leading a faction of at most seven MKs.
Choosing the MKs
Proportional representation allows relatively small parties to enter parliament and gives a wide range of constituencies a voice. According to Rahat, that representation matters in a society divided into groups with different political visions.
“High proportionality should be preserved because Israeli society is really divided into many different groups, and each group should get its fair share,” he said.
In Israel, the whole country forms one electoral district, with voters choosing from the same party lists wherever they live. In most democracies, voters elect at least some of their representatives through regional districts.
Many countries using proportional representation also allow voters to express a preference for individual candidates within a party list. Israelis cannot change the candidates’ order on Election Day
According to Dr. Assaf Shapira of the IDI, Israel is the only developed democracy whose electoral system gives voters neither a regional choice nor a choice of individual candidates.
A single nationwide district contributes to a centralized political system focused on party leaders, Rahat said. Closed lists give those leaders further influence. In most parties, they decide or have considerable say over who will enter the next Knesset.
“Once again, in the current context, it gives a lot of power to party leaders,” he said.
The concentration of power does not mean the Knesset’s membership stays the same. Israel has higher parliamentary turnover than other countries. In 2013, first-time MKs filled 40% of the Knesset’s seats; in 2015, they accounted for nearly a third. While Benjamin Netanyahu has remained in politics, many other politicians have come and gone.
Electoral districts and a semi-open list could give voters more influence over their representatives, Rahat said. Under a semi-open system, voters would choose a party and could also indicate which of its candidates they prefer. Enough support could move a candidate from a lower position into an electable place. “A system that would allow people, if they want, only if they want, to express their opinion concerning the people who will run from the party to which they vote,” he told the Report.
Reform’s difficult history
Israel has already attempted a substantial change. Legislation passed in 1992 introduced direct election of the prime minister. In 1996 and 1999, voters cast separate ballots for prime minister and parliament; a final, special prime-ministerial election followed in 2001.
The arrangement let voters back a prime-ministerial candidate while giving their parliamentary vote to a smaller list, contributing to concerns about fragmentation. The reform was repealed in 2001, and the single-ballot parliamentary model returned in the 2003 election.
Changes since then have largely left the way Israelis vote intact. The electoral threshold rose from 1% to 1.5%, then to 2% and finally 3.25%.
Semi-open lists have drawn support across the political spectrum, according to Prof. Ofer Kenig of the IDI.
But passing reform would require agreement from parties whose leaders benefit from the current system, Rahat said. He pointed to ultra-Orthodox parties among those that could block changes.
In a coalition that depends on every constituent party, each can prevent a change it opposes. A government is unlikely to risk losing power over electoral reform. “Consensus is much harder to get than a majority,” he said.
For now, voters can choose a party but cannot change the order of its candidates. Giving them that choice would mean changing a system that gives party leaders considerable power – with the agreement of the parties themselves.■