IDF Deploys Over 800 Polling Stations for Upcoming Knesset Elections

The IDF is preparing to hold elections in a challenging operational reality, for the first time with forces operating across the border. More than 800 polling stations will be deployed starting next week in operational units and sectors to enable regular service members and active reservists to exercise their right to vote.

Early voting in the IDF will open on the evening of October 20 and will last for seven days, until the general election day on October 27. As part of the preparations, hundreds of stationary and mobile polling stations will operate in locations where service members are stationed.

The mobile polling stations will move between units according to a pre-arranged schedule. Each mobile polling committee will be accompanied by an armed officer or NCO responsible for its security. During transit between units, the secondary ballot box cover will remain locked.

Soldiers will be able to choose whether to vote at a military polling station or a civilian one. Voting at military polling stations will use double envelopes to ensure voters are eligible and that each person votes only once.

Colonel Vered Ben Yehuda has been appointed IDF Election Officer to manage the election apparatus, alongside her role as head of the IDF Civilian Personnel Employment Center. The apparatus will involve hundreds of election officers and about 3,000 soldiers trained to serve as polling committee members.

The IDF emphasizes that the role of the apparatus is to facilitate voting and maintain the integrity of the process, without dealing with political content or voters' positions, while preserving the national character of the military and keeping it out of political discourse.