The High Court of Justice ruled unanimously Thursday night that the practice of party-appointed polling station representatives tracking which voters cast their ballots on election day is illegal, and explicitly banned the use of such data, overturning a previous ruling by the Central Elections Committee.

In its ruling, the court pointed out that there is no legal basis to permit the practice, and that it also violates a specific clause of the Protection of Privacy Law and the right of Israeli citizens to privacy.

“I will reiterate and clarify that, in the absence of explicit legal authorization, party representatives at polling stations are not permitted to pass on to their parties information regarding a person’s exercise of the right to vote,” wrote Justice Yael Willner in the ruling regarding the upcoming election.

Likud ministers reacted furiously to the decision, with Justice Minister Yariv Levin accusing the High Court of trying to sway the elections in favor of the opposition in order to stop a new right-wing government from making appointments to the Supreme Court and to stop further right-wing reforms to the legal system.

The Likud and ultra-Orthodox parties in particular have made extensive use of this data to boost their voter turnout in recent election cycles, and the Likud party lawyers argued in court that their election day operations would be severely harmed if this practice was banned.

The court ruling overturned a decision by the Central Elections Committee earlier this month that had given a green light to the practice.

Opposition parties did not immediately respond to the ruling, but........

© The Times of Israel