Nostalgia Sunday – Elections in Israel, Part 2

February 1, 2009 - 5:29 PM by Rachel Neiman

ballot_boxElections are coming up on February 10th and now seems the appropriate moment to take a look at how we do it here. The Ministry of the Interior has very efficiently issued a guide in four languages (including English), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has put out a comprehensive backgrounder, and the Knesset has posted an explanation of the Israeli electoral system. But these dry documents can’t possibly convey how much fun voting is here – the bright colors, the block letters, little pieces of paper and funny TV ads.

voting_booth_interior_smOkay, that sounds a bit infantile, but look how cute the inside of an Israeli voting booth is! Every one of those letters represents a different political party. So you go in, put a little “petek” in the envelope, seal it, go outside and slide it into the ballot box. And no matter how bad you want to, you mustn’t put in more than one! However, if you are sorely tempted, you can stuff your pockets full of ballots from funny parties you would never vote for, and give them to your friends later in the day, just for laffs.

This past summer, the Ministry of the Interior issued a tender for computerized voting in November’s municipal elections. That’s as far as we’ve gotten with introducing IT into the electoral system and, given the computer crashes that plagued both Likud and Labor’s primary races – which left Silicon Wadi with egg all over its face – that’s as far as we’re going to get right now. But, even without computers, look how far the system has advanced in 60 years.

wzo_election_then

Okay, maybe not so much.

wzo_election_now

These two photos are part of a wonderful WZO slide show entitled Celebrate 60 Years with Israel – “Fulfilling the Dream”. Click here for Nostalgia Sunday – Elections in Israel, Part 1.

Tags: , , , , • Category: General, Israeliness, Nostalgia Sunday, Politics, Pop Culture 

Comments

3 Comments on Nostalgia Sunday – Elections in Israel, Part 2

  1. varda on Sun, Feb 1st 2009 9:08 PM

    2. whaddaya mean nothing has changed? the guy on the right lost a lot of weight and some hair, the guy in the middle lost his keffiya headband and now has to wear the keffiya around his neck, and the guy on the left bought a tie.

  2. Rachel on Mon, Feb 2nd 2009 12:56 PM

    3. Also, Israel began importing color film…

  3. Larry in L.A. on Tue, Feb 3rd 2009 2:47 AM

    4. “look how far the system has advanced in 60 years.”

    LOL. Great post….

Leave a Comment





© 2010 ISRAELITY | Site by illuminea | Sitemap