By Eitan Elhadez-Barak • September 8, 2026
Jerusalem, 8 September, 2026 (TPS-IL) — Israel’s Central Elections Committee is preparing for threats that go well beyond the traditional logistical challenges of running an election, including cyberattacks, disinformation, foreign influence operations and the possibility of a major security escalation on Election Day.
Naomi Binyamini, a representative of the Central Elections Committee, outlined the scale of the preparations during a briefing for reporters at the Knesset, describing the logistical, technological and security measures being put in place ahead of Israel’s elections.
Residents of Jerusalem cast their ballots as Israel holds municipal elections on Feb. 27, 2024. The elections, originally scheduled for Oct. 31, were postponed because of the Gaza war. Photo by Yoav Dudkevitch/TPS-IL
The committee normally employs just 44 people, but its workforce expands dramatically once an election is called. During the preparation period, about 1,500 additional employees are recruited, with the number reaching approximately 100,000 on Election Day.
The operation requires 250 tons of ballot paper, 12 million voting envelopes and approximately 18,000 ballot boxes. Some 12,525 polling stations and more than 6,000 special accessible polling stations operate under 20 regional committees. About 52,000 election officials are trained within a single month.
Beyond the logistical challenge, the committee is also preparing for threats in the digital sphere.
Asked about foreign influence operations, disinformation and the use of artificial intelligence to manipulate voters, Binyamini said the committee has established a dedicated monitoring team.
“There is a special team that monitors this matter and deals with it on an ongoing basis,” she said. “It checks and sees where there are attempts to improperly influence the opinion of the voters.”
Binyamini said the committee is also conducting public information campaigns aimed at helping voters identify unreliable information.
“The purpose of which is to make it clear that information that does not come directly from the committee should not be listened to,” she said.
The committee is taking into account possible influence and intervention by hostile foreign states, while the handling of disinformation generated by rival domestic political campaigns remains a more complex issue under examination.
Despite Israel’s advanced technology sector, voters will continue to cast paper ballots. According to Binyamini, studies of digital voting found that cyberattacks could have a much greater impact on an electronic system, while public trust in digital voting remains relatively low. International experience has also shown that relatively few countries have fully adopted electronic voting.
The committee has nevertheless introduced technological safeguards. In the last election, an election-integrity inspector equipped with a dedicated camera was assigned to each polling station, while an application enabled the real-time reporting of irregularities to the committee’s central command.
The most serious contingency involves a major security attack on Election Day. The committee maintains a dedicated emergency team, while polling station workers receive instructions on how to respond to rocket alerts and other emergencies, including during the counting of ballots.
Binyamini said that if Israel faced a broad attack on Election Day morning, the decision on whether voting could proceed would be made at a higher level.
“It will be impossible to hold elections when there is a major attack,” she said.
About 6.8 million Israelis are eligible to vote in the October 27, 2026, election.
Recent public opinion polls show Gadi Eisenkot’s Yashar! party leading Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud. However, parties aligned with Eisenkot would still fall short of the 61 seats needed for a Knesset majority.
