Jerusalem, 27 October, 2026 (TPS-IL) — check this draft for spelling, grammar and punctuation only. do not touch my HTML coding. Election day for the 26th Knesset was marked by a stream of complaints, arrests and legal petitions. Most were allegations that have yet to be tested.
Police arrested three suspects in the Bedouin communities of the Negev on suspicion of harming election integrity. According to police, the suspects prepared forged envelopes and tried to bribe residents to vote for the Ra’am party. Officers seized envelopes containing ballot slips, some with cash inside. Police did not say the party itself was involved, and the investigation is ongoing.
A separate complaint was filed with Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara by the group Guardians of Israeli Democracy. It asks for an investigation into “Victory 26,” an app developed by the firm Elector for Likud’s campaign. The complaint cites an affidavit from David Rechter, a former head of computing at Likud headquarters. He says the app could capture audio through phones in polling rooms, process it automatically, and identify voters by name and serial number. He also argues that a High Court ruling restricting recording could be bypassed with a link or an ordinary WhatsApp message.
Religious Zionism and Yashar! reported damaged or missing ballot slips, and Adalah warned of shortages of Arabic-language ballots in several towns. Police were called to Kiryat Ye’arim over alleged deliberate slowdowns. In Tiberias, a complaint was filed over an alleged assault on a party activist.