Likud primaries: Thousands will vote today

Likud early voting will take place today in 39 polling stations from 11:00 am to 21:00 pm – it was decided by the election committee of the party. Centers with the ballots that did not record faults, will not reopen.

The decision is based on a legal opinion, and the decision is to lock at midnight (instead of 22.00), the ballot boxes which will not stand legal tests.
Likud's legal adviser, attorney Avi Levi, said: "The committee decided unanimously the unprecedented decision to accept the approach of the judge Yehoshua Gross to hold an additional voting day. The Committee's decision reflects the approach that the right to elect and be elected by members of the movement is a basic right and important, and the extension of voting is fulfilling this right for the best."

The decision came after during Election Day, thousands of Likud functions came to the polls and failed to exercise their right to vote, due to serious technical problems.
Examination of a Likud director revealed that until 15:00 noon only about 8% voted out of -123 thousand voters.

In the evening the situation improved and stood at a rate of about 46 percent, after at about 17:00 in the afternoon computers returned to work.

Yesterday's voting results were loaded onto two CDs. One of them was the Chairman of the Election Committee and other party auditor to prevent counterfeiting.

Cancel the elections

Tzvi Raz, Vice President of 'Artist advisors' group 'Ament' - the company which was responsible for computing the Likud primaries - said that the company suspects that a cyber attack caused disruptions.

But computer experts have argued that a failure of communication between the voting stations and the central server, possibly due to inappropriate preparation. The company itself denies this.

Minister Michael Eitan said: "The decision to extend the primaries is right and respects the fundamental right of Likud members to affect the image of the Likud list for the Knesset. I hope that tens of thousands of Likud members will take advantage of the extension granted and exercise their right to vote, despite the fact that they could not do so at the appointed time."

This afternoon two mayors on behalf of the party turned to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and requested him to cancel the primaries and hold the primaries for the party's Knesset list, as soon as possible, manually.

Mayor of Beit She'an, Jackie Levy, and the mayor of Ma'ale Adumim, Benny Kashriel, sent the Prime Minister a letter which claimed that: "Due to many problems with the method of computerized elections for the primaries and subsequent long lines formed and after a large number of voters left their polling places, some of which had not even been opened, we demand to cancel the elections which take place today."

Due to computer malfunctions during the Likud primaries Yair Lapid the Yesh Atid chairman- who chose the candidates of his party using Mapai's methods in the 50's – wrote a message on his Facebook page. "I looked at the Likud primaries: are those the ones that want to run a country?" He wrote.

'בחדרי' גם ברשתות החברתיות - הצטרפו!