High Court bars parties from reporting who voted at polling stations ahead of election

On Thursday, the High Court of Justice ruled that parties cannot inform their members which identifiable voters have cast ballots at polling stations, ending a practice six weeks before the October 27 election in Israel. This unanimous decision overturns a previous ruling by the Central Elections Committee, which had allowed the reporting of voting information under certain restrictions.

While parties are still allowed to contact voters and urge them to vote, they cannot use the information obtained by their representatives at polling stations to identify who has voted. The court emphasized that this information has been valuable for campaigns, as party representatives could observe when a voter was removed from the polling-station list and use it to contact likely supporters who had not yet voted.

The court found that passing this information to a party for campaign purposes violated the Privacy Protection Law, which prohibits the use or disclosure of personal information for purposes other than the one for which it was supplied. The decision applies to the transfer of identified turnout information from polling stations, regardless of the method used, and does not prohibit the use of campaign software like Elector.

The court rejected the Likud's argument that a longstanding practice should be allowed, as previous chairmen of the Central Elections Committee had expressed doubts about the legality of the reporting. The Likud had also claimed that removing the reporting system so close to the election would cause significant harm, as the party had invested in software to use this information.

The court rejected the idea that longstanding use equated to permission and dismissed the Likud's petition to overturn the decision.