Thread by @IsraelexLive

#ItBegins

The first list submission for #Israelex4 has entered the room: Yair Lapid's Yesh Atid party.

This is conducted under the strictest of coronavirus safety protocols.
* Shoulder-high plexiglass barriers that don't prevent aerosol spread
* Masks worn at all times except while talking, when infection is highest
* Two-meter separation, long proven to be irrelevant to the virus

Anyway, enough of that. I'm a political Twitter account, not an epidemiological Twitter account.

Yesh Atid has nabbed the symbol פה, preventing both New Hope and Blue & White from using it. As I said earlier, though, they can still use one or the other letter with other letters.

Next up: Tzalash, Naftali Bennett's party, better known as the New Right, even better known as Yamina.

Contrary to both my guess and @NadavElimelech's reporting, they are asking for the letter י.

The letter י can be problematic, because it can be confused with I or ו. But if you're the first in line, you can get it and prevent anyone else from using the latter two letters.

A CEC member raised the specter of lost votes. Part of the point of the letter symbols is so you can write it in on a blank paper if your party's ballot slip is missing. But י is tiny and might be confused for a blank ballot.

Yamina's rep, MK Matan Kahana, said he isn't worried.

In between list submissions, while we wait, the CEC election live feed is displaying coronavirus safety precaution advice:
* Keep two meters' distance, even though that advice is outdated and meaningless.
* Disinfect surfaces, even though that advice is outdated and meaningless.

Next up: Benny Gantz's party. (The feed cut off the announcement, so I don't know if they were introduced by the party name "Israel Resilience" or the faction name "BLue & White".)

They are asking for the symbol כן.

The list names have been fairly unoriginal so far:
* Yesh Atid headed by Yair Lapid
* Yamina headed by Naftali Bennett
* Blue & White headed by Benny Gantz

Lapid has submitted a full slate of 120 candidates. Yamina submitted 40, Blue & White submitted 55.

Another list's representatives have entered the room, but somebody over at @electionknesset forgot to turn on the feed's audio so I don't know who it is.

Turns out it was the Democratic Party, a new party representing the far-left protestors that meet weekly outside the Prime Minister's residence. They have 37 people on their list and took the symbol רק.

https://twitter.com/danido99/status/1356940928972443654

Another group came in, but the audio took some time to come back so I don't know who it is. They wanted כן but Blue & White already has it. So they asked for ר, and as a backup if that's not available רצ. But they can't have רצ because that's too similar to Meretz's symbol.

Why do they need a backup for a letter that's available? We don't know what symbols the Joint List and/or Ra'am will use, and they have ownership of ודעם. If one of them decides to use ד alone, that's too similar to ר, so it will override that request from this new party.

This mystery party was "Rapeh - Only Health", with 12 candidates on the list. Its symbol will be either ר or צ or זך depending on availability.

I hope the audio people get their act together. I don't want to have to do this every time.

Next up to submit its list for #Israelex4: Israel Beiteinu, headed by Avigdor Lieberman.

CEC head Judge Vogelman just said that nobody has expressed happiness with the frequency of these elections. He clearly has not seen my Twitter account.

(In the meantime, outside the list submission room, Larissa Trembovler the wife of Rabin assassin Yigal Amir, has named her list "Justice - Freeing Yigal Amir".)

https://twitter.com/arikbender/status/1356947132280897540

Yisrael Beiteinu's symbol is, of course, ל. It has 23 people on its list.

So a whole bunch of parties that were supposed to submit lists already haven't done so yet. Some I assume because they are seeing if they can finalize a merger first: Israelis, New Economic, New Hope, National Union, Israelis, Green Leaf.

Shas is planning on submitting its list at 19:00 tonight.

https://twitter.com/aronkalman1/status/1356949982008516611

Is that Ilan Mashicha Yar Zanbar outside the hall?

Yes it is! Ilan Mashicha Yar Zanbar is preparing to submit his list.

In the meantime, entering the CEC presentation room is Mishpat Tzedek, headed by Larisa Trembovler, whose platform is the freeing of her husband Rabin assassin Yigal Amir. They're asking for the symbol קץ.

Next up: a minor party called Da'am, that wants to create a Green New Deal between the Israelis and Palestinians. It got 612 votes last election. For some reason they didn't discuss which letters they wanted.

Da'am asked for ץ alone, or failing that כ alone. It has 14 candidates on its list. Mishpat Tzedek has 6.

I should the previous election's vote counts for each. Yesh Atid and Blue & White got 1,220,381 votes running together. Yamina got 240,689 as part of an alliance and is now running alone. Democrats and Rafeh are new. Lieberman got 263,365. Mishpat Tzedek got 1,375. Da'am got 612.

Next list: The Jewish Heart headed by Eli Yosef. A minor party that got 516 votes last election. He's talking about President Eisenhower for some reason.

Jewish Heart has 5 candidates and is asking for the letter כ.

Next up, the candidate with the single greatest name of all: Ilan Mashicha Yar Zanbar, with the Manhigut Chevratit (Social Leadership) party. 271 votes last election.

Ilan Mashicha Yar Zanbar is asking for יר, which spells Yar. He has 5 candidates on his list.

The next party is just named Kol, or Voice. It has only 2 candidates on its list, which means if they cross the threshold they'll win more seats than they have candidates. Naturally this leads to a discussion of the Flatto-Sharon Party.

Kol is a new party, didn't run last time, though one of its candidates apparently ran on a different list. It's asking for the letter ק.

Kol's list doesn't have the word "Kol" in it (which is not a problem; Shas's list never has "Shas" in its name). Instead it's the name of three people followed by "The Impossible Is Possible".

Why three people if there are only two candidates? Why do you ask difficult questions?

Next list: Olam Hadash ("New World"). It's a new party but apparently includes representatives from the old Pensioners Party.

They didn't follow the rules for symbol requests: עולם is too long; you can only have up to two letters. חי is unusable without permission from the Likud to use ח. And עח is unusable without permission from the Likud to use ח and from the Joint List to use ע.

They settled on ני.

Next: Kama, a Hebrew acronym for the Advancement of the State of the Individual. It is made up of the wives of imprisoned cult leader Daniel Ambash, who want to legalize polygamy and other things related to their... unique situation. 350 votes last election.

They asked for נח; that's no good, because the Likud owns ח. Then ני, but somebody already got that. Then נן, but you're not allowed to have the same letter twice (even though it's not the same form of the letter? Weird, that's not in the law.) They settled on נ, provisionally.

Next: The Israelis, which is *not* the same Israelis headed by Ron Huldai, apparently. So Huldai may have a problem. It's this one:

https://twitter.com/arikbender/status/1344005479157141504

These Israelis wanted ים, but to use ם you need permission from the Joint List and they were unable to get it. So instead they're taking ז.

Anyway, that's why Israelis appeared twice on the signup sheet: One is Huldai's party, the other is this unknown minor party. This individual is asking that the CEC prevent Huldai from using his party's name when the latter tries to sign up.

Next: Shma, headed by Naftali Goldman. Minor party, got 442 votes in the last election. They want קי as their symbol, which appears to be fine.

It's a little bit surreal - parties get to do a little press conference thing after their list submission, and the camera kept cutting back and forth between the Kama press conference and the list submissions.

Number of candidates for the last few parties:
* Olam Chadash (New World): 50
* Kama: 4
* Israelis (not Huldai's): 6
* Shma: 4

After a long lull, the next list was the "National Union" party.

Not the party headed by Smotrich, which has been renamed the Religious Zionist Party. Some other party that wants the NU name. Judge Vogelman warned that it might not be approved.

No audible discussion of letters.

Next list: "We Are Together for a New Social Order". Another new party. They request רק, but that's already been taken.

Whoever's in charge of the live feed keeps cutting away to the hall outside for no sensible reason. I *think* this list settled on taking נץ.

The Knesset's info screen has updated, so I can confirm: the alternate-universe-National-Union party asked for ינ and has 11 candidates, and "We are together for a new social order" asked for נץ and has 5 candidates.

Whoever is in charge of that screen is either lazy, frustrated, or has a good sense of humor, because instead of bothering with the whole "we are etc. etc." they just listed the last party as being called "We".

Next up, the first famous party we've had in a while: New Hope, headed by Gideon Sa'ar.

And the sound guy dropped the ball again so we can't hear anything. This live feed is an embarrassment.

So they've cut away to the hall outside where we *can* hear nothing interesting happening. We want to hear and see what's in the room, people! @electionknesset

Worth noting that New Hope contains the Derekh Eretz Knesset faction that split from Blue & White (1,220,381 votes last election), and MKs from the Likud and Kulanu parties that ran jointly (1,352,449 votes). But you already know about this party. It's in polls and stuff.

New Hope has asked for the letter ת, just the letter ת, and it has permission from the Labor Party to use it.

(Which is interesting. Don't they also need permission from the Gesher and Meretz parties, who also ran under that banner?)

New Hope has 64 candidates in its slate.

Here's the answer to my question:

https://twitter.com/kalpiot/status/1357030468785422336

Of course this does mean that Levy can screw with Sa'ar by deciding to run with ת after all. He'll have to reprint his posters and everything.

Whoever's responsible for the info screen just accidentally erased New Hope from the list of parties that submitted in the live feed.

Legally, of course, this means Sa'ar must drop out of the race.

No wait, they fixed it, it's back now.

Strange: The livefeed has closed even though list submission is open until 22:00 tonight.

Either they already know for sure nobody else is submitting tonight, or this is yet another technical glitch.

Well, with no renewal of the video feed and no additional reports of new parties, I assume list submission is over for the day.
18 parties are now officially running in #Israelex4 so far.