Chareidi political parties in Israel are developing new election-day strategies following a ruling by Supreme Court Justice Noam Sohlberg prohibiting real-time reporting from polling stations, a decision that threatens to disrupt the voter-tracking systems traditionally used by party campaign headquarters.

Degel HaTorah is considering recruiting hundreds of seminary students to operate telephone banks, while Shlomei Emunim is preparing to establish special reporting stations outside polling locations where voters will be able to voluntarily confirm that they have cast their ballots.

The proposed arrangements are intended to allow party officials to continue monitoring voter participation and identifying supporters who have not yet voted, without relying on information collected from inside polling stations.

According to information obtained by Emess, Degel HaTorah is examining a plan to enlist students from the 13th and 14th grades of seminaries in major chareidi cities to staff a large-scale telephone operation on Election Day.

Under the proposal, the students would contact voters identified as party supporters, encourage them to exercise their voting rights, and ask whether they had already visited the polls.

The information gathered through those conversations would allow campaign headquarters to assess participation among their supporters and determine where additional voter outreach may be necessary.

The proposal has not yet received final approval. Party officials are expected to present the plan to the rabbonim, who will make the ultimate decision on whether the seminary students may participate.

In addition to the proposed telephone campaign, Degel HaTorah is working on a separate voter-monitoring arrangement built around the organizational structure of its local communities.

Under that system, supporters would be divided according to their respective kehillos, with each community’s gabbai responsible for maintaining contact with members and reporting to the party’s central election headquarters which individuals have voted and which have not yet done so.

Party officials hope that this decentralized approach will provide a continually updated picture of voter participation, allowing them to identify communities where turnout is lagging.

Shlomei Emunim, meanwhile, is pursuing a different arrangement that would place specially designated reporting stations near polling locations.

The stations, which party officials are calling election command posts, would be positioned outside the actual voting areas. Supporters would be able to approach the stations voluntarily and inform party representatives that they had already cast their ballots.

The system would enable Shlomei Emunim to gather information directly from voters rather than relying on polling-station personnel to transmit details about who had voted.

The restrictions stem from a legal battle that began in August, when Justice Sohlberg, chairman of the Central Elections Committee, ruled that party representatives stationed inside polling places could not provide campaign headquarters with real-time information identifying voters who had already cast ballots.

Sohlberg determined that information about whether and when a person votes is protected under Israeli privacy law and that election officials are not authorized to disclose it for partisan campaign purposes.

The ruling encountered strong opposition from several political parties, including Likud, Shas, and United Torah Judaism, which maintained that the longstanding practice was lawful.

On September 6, the full Central Elections Committee voted 19–11, with three abstentions, to overturn Sohlberg’s restriction and permit the reporting system to continue. The matter subsequently returned to the High Court, which struck down the committee’s decision, leaving the prohibition in place ahead of the October 27 Knesset elections.

The court’s decision has created a significant logistical challenge for parties that have traditionally relied on detailed voter databases and election-day reporting systems to track participation.

Other alternatives reportedly under consideration within United Torah Judaism include telephone hotlines through which voters could report that they have voted and assigning campaign workers responsibility for maintaining contact with small groups of supporters.

{Matzav.com}