Voting in the Israeli elections with a compass

January 30, 2009 - 11:02 AM by

greenWith elections only 11 days away, it looks like a shoe-in for the Likud party led by Binyamin Netanyahu. But according to polls, there’s about 400,000 voters – which almost 10% of eligible voters – who haven’t yet decided which of the 34 parties running for Knesset to vote for.

You could count me as one of them. Alot of friends and acquaintances are voting for the Green Movement-Meimad ticket, but I fear they’re going to get 90% of the vote among liberal religious Anglo residents of southern Jerusalem neighborhoods like Baka and Talpiot, and 0.2% everywhere else.

Will they cross the threshold of minimum votes to gain at least one Knesset seat and not result in a wasted vote? Their TV ads aren’t very convincing – using Rabbi Michael Melchior giving a speech instead of utilizing one of the young, dynamic members on the list like Alon Tal. Melchior’s fine, but he’s a known entity, and his Meimad party has limited support around the country.

Perplexed, I ended up on this site my wife told me about – the Election Compass - a multiple choice questionaire about different issues related to Israel’s security mostly. Based on your answers, you receive a report with a compass on the political map pointing to the party you should be voting for – or at least the general vicinity.

Launched by the Israel Democracy Institute, the site had nearly 500,000 visitors by Thursday. Questions like ‘Would you be willing to give up Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem for a Palestinian state?’ have to be answered with a ‘strongly agree’ to ‘strongly disagree’ checkpoint range.

According to The Jerusalem Post, the model was initiated in the Netherlands for that country’s 2006 elections and was eventually used by 3.4 million people out of 12.6 million voters. The Israeli version was developed by a team of IDI scholars and researchers lead by Senior Fellow Prof. Asher Arian.

“The compass has three main goals,” Arian told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday. “The first is to help the perplexed voter find his position within the Israeli political map. The second is to encourage parties to be more forthcoming with specifics regarding their various platforms. And the third is to encourage political participation. We’re very concerned about the low participation rate in Israel, and we thought that this could add a buzz.”

After dutifully answering the questionaire, I awaited the tally and the compass page to find out who I should be voting for. And, my compass pointed to an area populated by – guess what – the Green Movement-Meimad.

Tags: , , , , • Category: Politics 

Comments

3 Comments on Voting in the Israeli elections with a compass

  1. Daniel on Sat, Jan 31st 2009 11:24 PM

    2. David,

    Then I’m thankful for the election compass (although I thought the two environmental questions were very poorly phrased). Considering the party is relatively new (with the Israel Green Movement starting just last summer), we’re doing fairly well. Just this week we’ve been taking a surprising large chunk of the vote at university and high school model elections, and for the first time appearing in national polls passing the minimum threshold. Those are promising signs, considering we’re still working in the shadow of the Gaza ops which pushed every subject (health, education, environment, civil society, welfare) off the public agenda. A vote for a party that represents your beliefs (the Green Movement-Meimad) is not a wasted vote – especially when it seems right on target.

    Best,

    Daniel.

  2. David Paran on Sat, Jan 31st 2009 11:25 PM

    3. Hi David,

    As Tel Aviv field campaign co-ordinator for Green Movement-Meimad, I can tell you to put your fears aside. We ahve dozens of activists (none Anglo other than me) on the streets of Tel Aviv every day and receive enormously positive feedback including many many people telling us that they’re voting Green Movement-Meimad. And it’s not only Tel Aviv and Jerusalem – we have the largest grassroots base of any party (our launch evnet had over 2,000 people!!) and we ahve activists all over the country. My wife, for example (not Anglo!) is co-ordinating the campaign in Pardes Hana and there, too, they are getting enormously positive feedback.
    As I’m sure you know, election polls are incredibly unreliable with the statistical error larger than 3 Knesset seats! The latest poll of ours shows that we have enough support to cross the threshold and enter knesset.
    So, I hope that you follow your instincts and vote for a party that can truly represent you.
    Please feel free to contact me if you want to continue the discussion: davidparan@gmail.com

  3. Yes, we can! The Green Movement-Meimad will pass the minimum threshold with your vote (ה) « An Unofficial Blog of the Israel Green Movement הבלוג הלא-רשמי של התנועה הירוקה בישראל on Sun, Feb 8th 2009 10:06 AM

    4. [...] at Israel21C Blogs and Brian Blum at Israel21C [...]

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