Israelis will have a record number party lists to choose from in the April 9 election, the Central Elections Committee announced Thursday, the last of day of filing.
A total of 47 candidate lists were submitted on Thursday, with Shas filing just before the 10 p.m. deadline.
This is the highest number ever, although this could ultimately drop because lists can be withdrawn before the voting starts.
Each party or coalition of parties running for the Knesset compiles a list of up to 120 potential Knesset members. In the polling station, voting is done by selecting a slip of paper on which one to three Hebrew or Arabic letters symbolizing a party list, as well as that list's full official name, are printed.
The number of representatives of each list who actually wind up serving in the Knesset is based on the percentage of the vote it gets in the election.
The minimum electoral threshold required to enter the Knesset is 3.25% of the vote, meaning that the fewest MKs a party can have in the Knesset is four. Because of this requirement, parties often submit a joint list, and then after the election split into different factions in the Knesset.
Among the new parties this year, called "The Land of Israel is Ours," was founded by Rafi Levengrond-Yehezkel, whose daughter Kim was killed in a recent terrorist attack. He asked for his party to be represented on ballot slips by the letters that spell out "Kim" in Hebrew, but because of technical rules, the slip will only have two of the three letters and will spell out "Ki."
One of the parties that has once again submitted a candidate list despite having virtually no chance of entering the Knesset is the Pirate Party of Israel. Its leaders arrived at the Central Elections Committee dressed as pirates.
