With less than a month until the Sept. 17 elections, the major parties announced Wednesday that they have inked surplus vote-sharing agreement, in an effort to ensure that no ballot goes to waste.
Vote-sharing deals are widely used in Israeli elections and are usually signed between parties that are politically or ideologically close. Such agreements allow parties to ensure that extra votes that do not add up to form a mandate don't go to waste.
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Israel's election threshold stands at 3.25%, which translated to about four Knesset seats, or mandates. As of 2019, a mandate equals 35,090 votes.
Under the agreement, should one of the parties receive a "surplus" of votes, it can share them with the partner to the vote-sharing deal to help it make up any disparity necessary to achieve a Knesset seat.
The ruling Likud party and Yamina (formerly United Right) announced a vote-sharing agreement Wednesday, as did the Democratic Union and Labor.
Later on Wednesday Blue and White announced it reached a vote-sharing deal with Yisrael Beytenu.
The move prompted Likud campaign manager Ofer Golan to appeal to polling institutes to present Yisrael Beytenu as a left-wing party in their surveys.
"After Lieberman signed a surplus agreement with [Blue and White co-leaders] Yair Lapid and Benny Gantz, and after declaring his commitment to recommend Gantz as prime minister, the Likud appealed to pollsters to refer to him [Lieberman] as part of the left-wing bloc," a Likud statement said.
There has been no word as to whether any of the pollsters plan to heed Likud's request.
Parties have until Sept. 6 to inform the Central Election Committee if they have a vote-sharing agreement in place and with which party.
