High Court of Justice Prohibits Transferring Real-Time Voting Data to Political Parties

What Caused the Dispute

The acting director general of the Central Elections Committee, Din Livne, permitted polling committee members and observers to report digitally to their parties the number of voters who had arrived at the polling station. The information consisted solely of quantitative data, without names or other identifying information. The Israeli Democracy Watch organization petitioned the High Court of Justice against the directive.

The Parties’ Positions

The petitioner argued that committee staff and observers perform a public governmental function, and that collecting the data creates a sense of surveillance, makes it harder to enforce the prohibition on individualized reporting, and could undermine equality among candidate lists. The state asked that the petition be dismissed, noting that the directive did not permit the collection of personal information or the photographing or recording of voters. Likud also opposed the petition: the party viewed the quantitative count as a tool for monitoring the integrity of the voting process, preventing violations, and mobilizing voters.

What the High Court of Justice Ruled

Justices Khaled Kabub and Ruth Ronnen formed the majority, while Justice David Mintz dissented. The Court made the relevant part of the order nisi absolute: during Election Day, polling committee members and observers on behalf of political parties and lists were prohibited from digitally counting the number of voters who had actually voted at a particular polling station and transferring those data in real time. The prohibition also applies when only an aggregate figure is transferred, without information about the voters’ identities.

The Legal Basis for the Decision

The petition invoked the principle of administrative legality, the special rules of conduct inside polling stations, and the approaches previously established by the chair of the Central Elections Committee and the High Court of Justice in the “Elector” matter. The published material indicates that the majority opinion revoked the authorization to transfer data digitally, but the Court’s detailed reasoning and the case number are not provided in the source.

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