Netanyahu's block of support that shrank by about 83,000 votes • Religious Zionism's successful gamble to run on two lists • And the weakening of the Arab lists, even though one of them became the language of the scales • This is how voting patterns affected the next Knesset
Voting in the Knesset elections // Photo: Oren Ben Hakon
Religious Zionism has grown, Arab representation has declined, and the camp that is not interested in Netanyahu has grown - these are just a few of the points that stand out in the voting data for the 24th Knesset, and probably also contributed to the tangle into which the political system entered.
First and foremost, the decrease in the overall turnout led to a decrease in the mandate survey, which this time stood at about 36,000 votes per seat, compared to about 38,000 votes the previous time.
The largest decline was recorded by the Likud party, which received 285,862 fewer votes this time than in the 23rd Knesset elections.
Most of the gap is due to the low turnout in the "Likud" cities.
In the 2020 elections, 10,761 sick notes were counted in Dimona.
Last week, only 8,766 people put this note in the envelope.
The picture in the other localities affiliated with the Likud is no different.
In Eilat the gap between the two dates is about 2,400 votes, in Sderot about 1,600, in Be'er Sheva about 11,200, in Bat Yam about 6,300, and in Netanya about 10,500 votes.
The city where the Likud suffered the most significant blow is Jerusalem, where there was a decrease of about 21,000 sick voters.
The Arabs did not flock to the polls
Another point that has changed dramatically between the two dates is the representation of Israeli Arabs in the Israeli parliament.
In the 23rd Knesset, 15 members served on behalf of the joint list, while in the 24th Knesset the two Arab factions - the joint and the RAAM - together number only 10 MKs, a decrease of one third in their power.
Numerically, the number of voters for both lists dropped by 201,916 votes.
The turnout in the Arab sector this time dropped to only 45.6%, the lowest since 2001 after the events of October.
If one tries to characterize the segmentation of voters between the two Arab lists, it can be clearly seen that Ra'am, MK Mansour Abbas' party, enjoys support in the Bedouin localities in the south and north of the country with 63% in Rahat, 66.6% in Kuseife, 83% in Tel Sheva and 46.9% in Tuba-Zangaria.
On the other hand, the joint list controls the urban Arab localities such as Umm al-Fahm, Taibeh and Tira.
A prominent urban locality that RAAM won an impressive victory in is Sakhnin, due to the fact that the former mayor, Mazen Ghanaim, was included in the party's list for the Knesset.
According to an analysis of the segmentation of voting in the Arab sector conducted by the Begin-Sadat Institute, the non-Arab party that receives the most votes in the Arab sector is the Likud with about 21,500 voters.
This is a little over half a seat.
Next in line after the Likud is the Meretz party with about 15,000 votes in the Arab sector, and then a surprise - Israel Beiteinu of Lieberman, with about 13,000 votes.
The explanation for this is about 12,000 Druze supporters of Lieberman's party.
Those who also recorded a decrease in the number of voters are the ultra-Orthodox parties.
Shas registered a decrease of 36,882 voters while Torah Judaism decreased by 26,067 votes. Fortunately for the two, the general decrease in the turnout left them with the same number of seats as they received in the previous Knesset.
More votes "burned"
Another interesting statistic is the key for or against Netanyahu.
If one compares the results obtained by the "Only Not Bibi" bloc that does not include the Arabs (the 23rd Knesset - Blue and White, Labor-Gesher-Meretz, Yisrael Beiteinu. The 24th Knesset - Yesh Atid, Blue and White, Labor, Meretz, Yisrael Beiteinu , New Hope) between the two election campaigns, reveals an increase of 83,420.
Gideon Saar will be happy to attribute to himself the two and a half seats that are currently preventing Netanyahu from forming a right-wing government with Bennett.
Those who can still be satisfied are Bennett and Smutrich, who this time chose to run separately.
In the elections to the 23rd Knesset, when they ran in a bloc that included the right, the National Union and the Jewish Home, their list won 240,689 votes.
This time, when they split into two lists, they raked together 499,361 - more than twice as much as the previous time.
If the Likud is looking for a positive point to hold on to, they will be surprised to discover Haifa, the red city that was painted blue by the Likud in the 24th Knesset elections.
At the same time, the Likud won the majority of votes in Haifa only because the left-wing parties split up and divided the votes between them.
In practice, in Haifa, too, the Likud recorded a dramatic drop of about 10,000 votes between the two election campaigns.
In the last election, more than 50,000 votes were "burned" that went to parties that did not pass the blocking percentage.
The leader is the economic party of Yaron Zelicha, which received 34,876 votes, followed by the Rafa party of vaccine opponents with 17,346 votes.
In the elections to the 23rd Knesset, "only" about 30,000 votes were thrown in the trash, of which 19,402 were of Jewish power.
The 21st Knesset election campaign holds the record for "burning" votes, with more than 330,000 votes.