Thread by @IsraelexLive

#ItBeganSevenMinutesAgoButNothingIsHappeningYet

Link to the live feed of list submissions for #IsraElex4:

https://twitter.com/electionknesset/status/1357286549386313731

"I am honored to present the first list of the day: The Pirates!"

Judge Vogelman welcomed them, saying he's glad they managed to arrive despite the issues they had.

The pirates got 1,473 votes last time. The audio keeps cutting in and out but it sounds like they ended up with the letter ף.

They expressed the hope that the threshold will be canceled one day, so they can get into the Knesset. But even with a canceled threshold you don't get any seats with only 1,473 votes.

Here's a thread on why the Pirates thought they wouldn't be able to submit their list, and why they were able to do so after all:

https://twitter.com/IsraelexLive/status/1356897916431007744

Ah, they also want to increase the size of the Knesset in addition to cancelling the threshold.
But even then, you'd need over 3000 seats before a party of that size could get represented.

The pirate list has 13 candidates on it.

The livefeed has been showing a rotating series of hold messages for the last hour, because nobody has come in to sign up their parties. But in the meantime, outside in the hall, the Ra'am party is getting ready to submit its slate of candidates.

https://twitter.com/arikbender/status/1357315853985992709

Ra'am is one of the four Arab parties that made up the Joint List, which received 581,507 votes in the last election. This time around Ra'am is running alone, and the Joint List will be made up of only the other three.

Only two polls have asked what happens if Ra'am runs separately. One saw it below the threshold at 1.8%; the other saw it crossing and getting 4 seats on its own.

New Economic Party has also arrived to submit its list. So far no feed from within the list-submission-and-letter-requesting room though, so presumably they and Ra'am are still waiting outside and/or filling out forms.

https://twitter.com/arikbender/status/1357326950008823809

The first New Economic Party representative has entered the Knesset building, but he can't submit the candidacies because he is neither the official representative nor vice representative. They'll review the forms but he'll have to wait to submit them when the others arrive.

Meretz is also here to submit its list. Looks like things are finally picking up. But nobody's in the actual room yet.

(I just realized that two minor color-themed parties haven't shown up yet: The Red & White Party headed by Ami Feinstein and the Green Movement headed by Stav Shaffir. The latter had a whole controversy over its primary election, so it's odd they're not here yet.)

Prof. Zelekha of the New Economic Party has arrived and they're going through form submission and review now. Still nobody in the actual room with the CEC.

(Forgot about a third color-themed party that hasn't submitted yet.)

https://twitter.com/danido99/status/1357336121399603206

I honestly don't get what's going on. Ra'am showed up an hour and a half ago and still nobody's made it into the room to submit their lists and pick out their ballot symbols. Did the entire committee go outside for smoke and get struck by lightning or something?

And now back to our regularly scheduled program. Ra'am has entered the hall. This is the nail in the coffin of the four-party Joint List.

The audio keeps cutting out and it's hard to follow the conversation. Maybe it's the massive rainstorm hitting Jerusalem right now, but the quality is far lower than in any of the previous three elections.

I did manage to hear that Ra'am is returning to its classic symbol, עם.

Curious: Ra'am is *not* submitting a full slate of 120 candidates. They're submitting only 119. Never seen that number in list submission; you usually only end up with that if you submitted 120 and one of them dies before the election.

Next in the room: The New Economic Party, headed by Prof. Zelekha. This is, as its name suggests, a new party. In polls it has ranged from just barely crossing the threshold (for 4 seats) to only getting 0.8% of the vote.

In comes @kalpiot, ruining the joke.

https://twitter.com/kalpiot/status/1357346673974943753

The New Economic Party has picked out the letters יז.

Next: The Social Bang: Pensioners Party. Yes, that's their name. They did not run last election.

All their letter requests have been taken already, except one that would require permission they don't have from the Likud. CEC head lawyer Orly Ades kept recommending various combinations and they didn't like any of them, before they finally settled on her first suggestion, נץ.

Next: The New Order party headed by Avital Ofek, which wants to change the electoral system and change it to direct local and national elections of individual MKs. A minor party, it received 677 votes last election.

The feed keeps cutting away to Zelekha's press conference outside. So I have no idea what the New Order party's letters are going to be unless it cuts back in.

This is not okay. These press conferences are stump speeches, political speech, that shouldn't even be allowed to use government resources, much less override the legitimate national interest in seeing what happens during list submission. Stump speeches we can see every day.

(Meanwhile, entering the Knesset are representatives from Am Shalem, one of the seven different national-religious parties.)

So the idiots controlling the camera feed did not, in fact, bring us back to see the end of New Order's submission. But we do have the infoscreen's summary:
New Economic Party: 21 candidates. Symbol: יז.
Social Bang: 4 candidates. Symbol נץ.
New Order: 7 candidates. Symbol קך.

Shas is here to present its list.

https://twitter.com/aronkalman1/status/1357352625394622474

Including Shas and Meretz, who are still outside filling out forms, there are still no less than ten prominent parties yet to submit their lists, depending on your definition of prominent.

Some of these may of course drop out or merge before the night is out.

So who are we still waiting for? Likud, Joint List, Shas, UTJ, Religious Zionist, Labor, Meretz, Gesher, and Jewish Home, in addition to more minor parties such as Am Shalem, the Green Movement, and other random tiny parties that may show up.

This is apparently what Labor was waiting for: With Huldai and Shelah out of the race, there are no more merger negotiations to be held, so they can go ahead and submit their list. It'll take at least an hour before he arrives, though.

https://twitter.com/talschneider/status/1357364885412265986

Shas has completed the bureaucracy part and is now submitting its list. 352,853 votes last election. Its letters will be שס as usual, of course.

Shas is emphasizing its renewed, young list and its desire to see stable government. The judge says everybody in the country wants that. The judge doesn't know about me.

The CEC asks Shas what letters it wants. This gets a big laugh. A CEC member tells a little bit of history: when Shas was formed, it wanted שת, the initials of שומרי תורה, but didn't get permission from Labor to use ת.

Next: Meretz. Running together with Labor and Gesher last election, it got 267,480 votes. As I pointed out at the time, this was a massive error; the parties could have gotten up to four more seats had they run separately. Too many Labor voters didn't like Meretz and vice versa.

Meretz and the CEC get into a bit of a philosophical discussion over what being leftist means. They're asked if Labor might not be more leftist than they are this time around. Merav Zandberg immediately shoots that down.

No discussion of what symbol Meretz will use. This was already settled back on January 12:

https://twitter.com/IsraelexLive/status/1349045146097213443

Meretz and Shas have both submitted full slates of 120 candidates.

Next is Am Shalem ("Whole Nation"), headed by former Shas MK Rabbi Amsalem, who is close to the national-religious end of the charedi spectrum. He is taking pride in the fact that his is the first list of charedi rabbis that includes charedi women.

Am Shalem had the longest self-introduction of any party so far but they finally got to letter selection. Their original requests were already taken. But they settled on קן.

Which I wonder at, because a party (Blue & White) already took כן and that's pronounced the same.

But apparently the CEC has no problem with that, so they're going with קן. And the Am Shalem reps went back to introducing themselves. (Are there no parties waiting outside for their turn?)

Am Shalem has 6 representatives on its list, and the slogan "Live and Let Live".

Next up, the Human Dignity party, a minor party that got 222 votes last election (second to last place).

The Human Dignity representative, Arkady something, is speaking so low I can barely hear him even by plugging in headphones. But his last name is spelled in Hebrew פוגץ'.

Mr. Fogech, says CEC head lawyer Orly Ades, starts to ask him what letters he wants when the camera cuts away. The director of the feed is starting to really annoy me.

The other feed is better (thanks @kalpiot). Ades points out that all of Fogech's symbol requests have been taken, and offers him יף, which he accepts.

One of the Human Dignity candidates apparently didn't submit an Acceptance of Candidacy form, and will be disqualified unless they bring it to the Knesset by 22:00 (three hours from now).

Next: The Secular Zionist Party. It didn't run last election, but its name is familiar and it probably ran in earlier ones. All the single letters have either been taken or are ineligible for other reasons (for example, ן is too easily confused with י). They're going with צף.

Human Dignity has 13 candidates on its list. Secular Zionist has 6.

Next up is the Tzomet party, a religious Zionist party with a very interesting recent history.

https://twitter.com/IsraelexLive/status/1351085560077688832

They asked for and received the letters זץ. Rare this late on the second day for a new party to get the first symbol it asks for.
11 candidates on the Tzomet list.

Next up: You and Me the Party of the Israeli Nation. A minor party, 812 votes last election. It was originally one of the first to sign up yesterday but didn't show up.

The party representative starts talking and the CEC tells him he can remove his mask. He does so, even though the 2 meter thing has long been proven wrong, and if I start talking about this I'll forget all about the election so I'll stop myself before I get too worked up.

He is giving a fairly angry speech about the problems he sees in Israeli society and government. A CEC member (a representative of another party) points out a bit sarcastically that he knew when to to show up, because he's making his speech in prime time. (7:40 PM).

He is asking for the letters קך or, failing that, כף. (He doesn't actually say what letters, he just said Kach, so it could be any of קח or כח or כך or קך. But the use of ח requires Likud permission and כך is the same letter twice in different forms, so it must be קך.)

Next up: Ma'an, a minor Arab party that has been trying for some time to compete with the Joint List's component parties and failing. They are apparently the successors of another Arab party that was in the Knesset through 1993.

They want מ (Likud owns it), ע (Joint List and Ra'am own it), or ן (too easily confused with Yamina's י). So they're the only party this cycle not to pick a symbol at all. They will try and get permission for ע, and failing that the CEC will have to pick a symbol for them.

(7 candidates on the You and Me list from earlier.)

With the You and Me party, BTW, we've surpassed the 29 parties that ran in the last election. We're now up to 31.

If we reach 35 parties, then those and the blank ballots fill the entirety of the box-thingy that holds the ballot slips (that's the technical term for it). At 36 , the blank ballot slips are kept off to the side. At 37, the country has to buy a bigger box.

https://twitter.com/kalpiot/status/1357385210812395523

Ma'an has 52 candidates on its list, which is quite a lot for an unknown party. Last election the most for any party under the threshold was 22.

We are certain to reach 36 just on the strength of the five major parties yet to submit: Likud, Joint List, UTJ, Religious Zionist, and Labor. Then there are Gesher and Jewish Home, who may or may not run alone. And who knows what other minor parties are waiting in the wings...

The all-time record for most parties was set in the first of the current series, back in April 2019. 47 parties filed to run, 7 of which would drop out before the election (the last of these literally the day before, too late to remove its ballot slips in many polling places).

Taking a short break, folks. If anything interesting happens in the next half hour I'll catch you up afterwards.

While I was gone, we had a submission from the Tanach Bloc, 8 candidates. It took the letters יק.

The Tanach Bloc is a minor party that's about Jewish-Muslim-Christian unity. 389 votes last election.

Hmm. I seem to have missed one. The "Ourselves: Independent and Liberal" party. Symbol צ and 7 candidates. (They did not need permission from Meretz for the צ because Meretz doesn't have exclusivity for it.)

Next: The Labor Party. The CEC offered them to remove their masks and they refused. #respect

They took pride in Merav Michaeli's resurrection of the party from almost certain death, and then the CEC video feed cut away from them to somebody talking about his diet.

Labor of course is using its classic symbol אמת, under which it ran last time with Meretz and Gesher and won 267,480 votes.

Labor has, for the first time that I can remember, not a full slate: 73 candidates.

Next up: The Joint List, consisting of the three Arab parties Chadash, Ta'al, and Balad. Last time, running with Ra'am as well, it received 581,507 votes.

An argument started up, with CEC members from other parties trying to needle the Arab party representatives about whether they agree or not with Israel being a Jewish state.

Really not the place for this, people.

I'm watching the feed from 20 minutes ago (sorry, had to put the kids to bed). The doors of the Knesset were closed and locked, and the keys were ceremoniously handed to the judge. Anybody not already in the building is out of luck and can't submit a list.

The Joint List, as usual, submitted a full slate of 120 candidates and is taking its full symbol of ודעם. (They could've been considerate for the symbol-hunters next election and dropped a letter or two....)

Next up is the Likud, after all the negotiations have been finalized. 120 candidates. Candidate #28 is from the One Future party. No other party was mentioned, so it looks like Gesher as an entity is dead; Orly Levy is now a member of the Likud.

The One Future Party is essentially a legal fiction. It enables the Likud to place a member of the Religious Zionist Party on the list, as Bibi promised. This allows that member to switch over to the RZP Knesset faction after the election without suffering sanctions.

Next up: UTJ, made up of the usual two parties: Agudat Israel and Degel Hatorah. They took much longer than usual to negotiate the list between them this time; normally they submit their list far earlier.

The UTJ representatives are throwing a bit of shade at Shas (who earlier took pride in how young and new their list is) by saying they deliberately picked older people who have accumulated wisdom.

UTJ, as usual, has submitted a full slate of 120 candidates under the symbol ג.

So now, unless there are any minor parties hanging around the Knesset halls, all that's left is the Religious Zionist Party. (This is traditional. The seven different national-religious parties always squabble amongst each other and sort themselves out at the last minute.)

Aha! There *is* a minor party hanging around the Knesset halls. The Hope for Change party, a minor Arab party that has run before although not in the last election.

But the person who came into the room to submit the list is not the official party representative recognized by law. So now they have to go find that representative and hope he hasn't left the building...

...which he has. Not good.

And now the Religious Zionist list headed by Bezalel Smotrich has entered, the last prominent party that we've been waiting for. The list contains the National Union, Otzma, and Noam parties.

This list has the letter ט, which has been the National Union's for decades. By law they could take the classic טב symbol belonging to the National Union-Jewish Home alliance, but they're respect the internal agreement that says ב belongs to Jewish Home.

The Hope for Change party has found their wayward representative and has returned to submit their list!

Hope for Change asked for צ or י, both of which have already been taken (the CEC apparently hasn't been informed yet that Yamina has dropped י in favor of ב).

So they'll take רנ instead.

The feed is now showing Otzma head Ben-Gvir's post-submission speech, which like all such speeches doesn't interest me. I'm waiting for the infoscreen that will tell us the number of candidates on the Religious Zionist and Hope for Change lists.

That's all, folks. A total of 39 parties submitted lists for #Israelex4. The CEC is closing up shop at 23:00, which they were unable to do last time.

Thank you for reading. We had some wild surprises today and it was as usual a lot of fun. See you all at the VSA signing stage!