The exit polls are based on voter surveys rather than counted ballots, leaving the seat distribution subject to change.
By Vered Weiss, World Israel News
Israel’s final pre-election polls produced sharply conflicting forecasts for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s bloc, with Channel 14 putting it above the threshold for a Knesset majority while Channel 12 and Channel 13 each projected it would fall 11 seats short.
Channel 14 News gave Netanyahu’s bloc 62 seats in its Oct. 22 survey conducted by NEXT DATA. The opposition received 44 seats and the Arab parties 14.
A day later, both Channel 12 News and Channel 13 News put Netanyahu’s bloc at 50 seats, creating a 12-seat gap between their forecasts and Channel 14’s projection.
The surveys also disagreed over which party would finish first.
Likud received 30 seats in Channel 14’s poll, compared with 20 for Gadi Eisenkot’s Yashar!.
Channel 12 reversed that order, giving Yashar! 23 and Likud 21, while Channel 13 projected 22 for Yashar! and 19 for Likud.
Within Netanyahu’s bloc, Channel 14 also projected nine seats for Shas, eight each for Otzma Yehudit and United Torah Judaism, and seven for Religious Zionism-Zehut.
Smaller parties hovering near the 3.25% electoral threshold could affect the eventual distribution of Knesset seats.
Ofer Winter’s Amcha Yisrael and the Reservists-Economic Party headed by Yoaz Hendel and Yaron Zelekha failed to qualify in some recent surveys but received four seats in others.
Any party receiving less than 3.25% of valid votes is excluded from the allocation of Knesset seats.
The remaining votes are then distributed among parties that crossed the threshold, which can alter the balance between the political blocs.
Differences in how pollsters account for undecided voters and expected turnout, as well as variations in sampling and statistical methodology, could also contribute to the conflicting forecasts.
Participation among different groups remains another variable.
Voters who tell pollsters they intend to support a party may ultimately not vote, while people who were not represented in surveys could turn out in greater numbers. Turnout among Arab society, the ultra-Orthodox public and undecided voters could therefore affect the seat distribution.
A pre-election polling tracker showed how unusual Channel 14’s majority projection was among recent surveys. Of nine polls examined, only one gave Netanyahu’s bloc at least 61 seats. The average across the nine was about 52 seats.I
