5,660,000 Israelis can vote in January election

The size of the electorate has multiplied by eleven since elections for the first Knesset in 1949, and grew by 7% since 2009.

By LAHAV HARKOV
Haredi man casts ballot elections 390 (R) (photo credit: Gil Cohen Magen / Reuters)
Haredi man casts ballot elections 390 (R)
(photo credit: Gil Cohen Magen / Reuters)
The size of the electorate has multiplied by a factor of 11 since the election for the first Knesset took place.
There are 5.1 million citizens with the right to vote in Israel on January 22, according to figures released by the Central Bureau for Statistics on Wednesday.
In 1949, there were 506,567 Israelis who had the right to vote in the election for the first Knesset.
The size of the electorate nearly doubled by the election for the second Knesset.
The size of the current electorate grew by 7 percent – some 333,000 people – since the last election in 2009.
Click for full JPost coverage
Click for full JPost coverage
Of those with the right to vote, 81% are Jewish, 15% are Arab (including Muslims, Christians and Druse), and 4% are neither Jewish nor Arab.
Another 560,000 people are listed as having the right to vote, but live abroad. In other words, only 89% of voters listed by the CBS live in Israel. There are 47,000 more voters abroad than in the previous election.
The lowest voter turnout was in 2006, when 63.5% of the electorate went to the polls. In 1996, 79.3% of those eligible voted, and before that, turnout was between 75% and 86.9%.