Tuesday, March 28, 2006

Israeli election turnout by hour
























Turnout in the Israeli election is running behind the turnout of the 2003 election, which was itself the lowest turnout in Israel's history. (Or second lowest, depending on your source! The 68.9% turnout in 2003 was the lowest for a Knesset election. The special election for Prime Minister in 2001 had only a 62.3% turnout. The next lowest Knesset turnout was 75.1 in 1951.)

After steadily falling behind 2003, turnout surged a bit between 18:00 and 20:00, making up some but not all of the shortfall. With less than an hour left before polls close, the major parties are said to be making strong efforts to raise turnout in the final hours.

Sources: http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/699377.html (The article has several errors, and their 2003 turnout numbers don't agree with those on the Knesset site, which is what I've used for 2003.)

http://www.knesset.gov.il/elections17/eng/about/PercentTimes_eng.htm

And the turnout numbers there differ from those here: http://www.idea.int/vt/country_view.cfm?CountryCode=IL