The statement came a day after the Knesset Arrangements Committee rejected a motion to waive the bill’s waiting period and allowing it to go to a vote two days early.
By LAHAV HARKOVPrime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reveals the Iranian nuclear bases uncovered by Israel, September 9 2019(photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s bill to allow cameras to be brought into polling stations on Election Day will go to a first vote in the Knesset on Wednesday, he said on Tuesday.“We will bring the cameras bill tomorrow for a vote in the Knesset plenary so we can know who is for voter fraud and who is against it,” Netanyahu said during a visit to a mall in Beersheba.The statement came a day after the Knesset Arrangements Committee rejected a motion to waive the bill’s waiting period, which would have allowed it to go to a vote two days early. The bill did not have majority support among MKs as of Tuesday afternoon.In addition, a vote on Wednesday makes it unlikely for the Likud-backed bill – which would allow observers to bring cameras to polling stations but not into voting booths on Election Day – to have time to become law before the election on Tuesday.“There is no reason for those who really want clean elections to oppose the cameras bill that prevents election fraud,” Netanyahu said on Monday.The prime minister accused Yisrael Beytenu and Blue and White’s leadership of voting with the Joint List against the bill, “because they are going together to a left-wing government, where [Joint List MKs] Ahmad Tibi and Ayman Odeh will be ministers.”The bill is unlikely to pass, as Yisrael Beytenu MKs will be skipping the vote, two days after party leader Avigdor Liberman said they oppose the bill.Liberman described the bill as an attempt by Netanyahu to “steal the election.”“This [current] bill is being advanced only to disrupt the election,” Liberman said at a news conference in the Knesset on Monday morning. “Supervision of the election cannot be carried out by Netanyahu’s private militia, who are only interested in stopping the smooth running of the election and to harm the results. Yisrael Beytenu is in favor of supervising the election, but only through a state body.”The Yisrael Beytenu leader said his party would only support the bill if Likud adopted a change to the text stipulating that the Central Elections Committee be the body to send representatives with cameras to polling stations, not party-appointed election observers.
The Central Elections Committee already planned to send out 3,000 “election integrity observers” with 1,000 body cameras borrowed from the police, who would visit every single polling station in the country. In addition, the entire vote-counting process would be filmed in stations that the committee designated as problematic.
