"Low-tech is the strength of the elections. You can always return to the ballot if you need to check"

"Technology is not suitable for every area of life, especially in elections," Orly Adas, who served as CEO of the Central Elections Committee for 16 years until her retirement in May, told Calcalist. "Low-tech is actually the strength of the elections. Even in most Western countries, they vote with a ballot. Voting with a ballot does not stem from a lack of technological maturity; the ballot creates process resilience. There is always the possibility to return to the ballot if an examination and check of a ballot box are required. There is always a medium to return to, to check and prove."

The voting process is one of the most critical and sensitive components of democracy. In the era of computing and AI, it is possible to vote via an app, but considerations of convenience and speed are secondary to issues like reliability, trust, and protection against forgery. Attempts to modernize the system harbor dangers: digital voting machines may be more convenient, but they also become the basis for conspiracy theories, as seen in the 2020 US elections.

"The manual method allows for better control"

"The existing system in Israel allows for control, reconstruction, and the ability to recount ballots in the best way, proving there are no irregularities," said Dr. Shahaf Zamir from Reichman University and the Hebrew University. "The manual method of ballots, when kept with all polling station materials, provides the most correct control for those who try to challenge election results."

Israel is on the most conservative side of the voting methods scale: a fully manual process, from voter identification to vote counting. Counting is carried out at the polling station by a committee including representatives from various Knesset factions, and observers are allowed to monitor the process. Ballots are counted manually at least twice before the protocol is transferred to the regional headquarters.

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Global reviews show that Western democracies tend toward conservative methods. For example, the system in France is almost identical to Israel's. In Germany, the Constitutional Court disqualified the use of voting machines in 2005, finding them unconstitutional because the principle of publicity requires that every citizen be able to follow all stages of voting without technical knowledge.

At the other end of the scale is Estonia, where 50% of voters vote via an app. However, experts warn that for Israel, moving to such a system would be equivalent to handing the elections to hostile states like Iran due to the risk of cyberattacks.

"We are attached to the traditional method because the risk in moving to other methods is too great and could lead to the loss of the legitimacy of the elections," concludes Prof. Eran Vigoda-Gadot from the University of Haifa. "At the decisive junction, where there is a possibility to replace the government, we will not risk letting machines allow even a chip of a mistake, because afterwards, it will be possible to challenge the legitimacy of the results."