One man … how many votes?

It was discovered that there are far more names on the Interior Ministry's official voters' roll than there are on the city's own list of voters.

By MIRIAM BULWAR DAVID-HAY (TRANSLATED)
How many people are actually eligible to vote in Tel Aviv in the municipal election this November 11? That's the question being asked after it was discovered that there are far more names on the Interior Ministry's official voters' roll than there are on the city's own list of voters, reports www.mynet.co.il. According to municipal figures, there are some 326,000 residents in the city aged over 17 and therefore eligible to vote, but on the ministry's list there are some 406,000 residents aged over 17 - a significant difference of 80,000 names. The report said an examination of the ministry's roll shows that it lists deceased people as well as people who have moved out of the city or who never lived there in the first place but who own apartments or hold rental contracts there. The report said these "external residents" are probably holding on to their Tel Aviv addresses in order to obtain residents' benefits such as parking or schooling, and they could well decide the results of the election. The report said the large discrepancy is a particularly "Tel Avivian" phenomenon, with no other city in Israel having such a pronounced difference between the two lists. It said the difference in the figures affects every aspect of the elections, especially the funding for political parties. By law, a local authority receives NIS 42 for every eligible voter, which is transferred to the elected city councilors after the ballot to pay for their campaigns proportionately to the number of votes they received. A municipal spokesman said the city's population figures are based on those of the Central Bureau of Statistics and the city considers them the official number of residents in the city. But an Interior Ministry spokesman said the ministry's list is the official list that will be used on election day. With some 80,000 voters more on its list than on the city's, this means a total of NIS 3.36 million more for the 31 elected councilors than they would otherwise receive, or more than NIS 100,000 each.