Knesset panel approves NIS 241.75m Central Election Committee budget.
By LAHAV HARKOVPrime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu casts his ballot in the 2013 election[File](photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
Israel must have computerized voting, MKs demanded at a Knesset Finance Committee meeting approving the Central Election Committee’s NIS 241.75m budget Sunday.“Work on digitizing elections so that the vote for the 21st Knesset will be digital, making it easier for citizens to vote,” Finance Committee chairman Nissan Slomiansky (Bayit Yehudi) told Central Election Committee chairwoman Orly Ades.Currently, Israelis vote by putting a slip of paper representing a party in an envelope and putting the envelope in a cardboard ballot box.MK Boaz Toporovsky (Yesh Atid) accused the Central Election Committee of rejecting proposals to improve its work.“The whole world moved to modern and advanced election processes,” he said. “We have to allow progress and digitize the election.”Ades said the committee began working on computerized voting, which would allow citizens to vote anywhere in the country, but had to stop because of the early election.However, she pointed out that England and France still vote with slips of paper, like Israel.“You want people to have to make an effort to vote, but the correct attitude is that they shouldn’t have to,” Toporovsky responded.As for the budget, the committee asked for NIS 5m. less than the last in the last election, after the making changes to be more efficient.Ades explained that the budget takes the committee’s maximum needs into consideration, so there is no chance its work will be harmed on Election Day. In addition, she said, a large part of the budget does not go to the committee, rather to police, parties with representatives at ballot booths, rent for the location of the booths and other expenses.
![Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu casts his ballot in the 2013 election[File] (photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)](https://images.jpost.com/image/upload/q_auto/c_fill,g_faces:center,h_537,w_822/266525 "Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu casts his ballot in the 2013 election[File]")