P
arliamentary elections in Israel will take place on April 9, but there are places in the world where voting has already been completed. One of those places is Washington, D.C., where a long line of embassy staff and Jewish Agency representatives lined up one morning last week to exercise their democratic right to vote.

By law, only Israelis employed by the government and stationed abroad (and their spouses) are allowed to vote outside the country. In total, 5,137 Israelis voted at 96 polling places in 77 countries. Hagar Netzer, a representative of the Jewish Agency in Chevy Chase, Maryland, said it was odd to vote in Washington, where the atmosphere on Election Day is more subdued than in Israel.

“I’m used to voting in Tel Aviv, at the main polling place there, where the politicians themselves stand outside trying to persuade people,” Netzer said. “At the ballot box at the embassy there were no politicians or representatives of the parties. It didn’t feel like it was the elections at all.”

The process of voting at a special ballot box abroad is very different from a polling place in Israel. In Israel, voters take a slip of paper with a Hebrew letter (or letters) representing their chosen party, put it in an envelope, and then drop it in the ballot box. But in Washington, there were no pre-printed slips of paper. Instead, each voter wrote out their party of choice and placed that slip in an envelope. Then that envelope was placed in another envelope. Only on Election Day will representatives of the Elections Committee open these envelopes to verify that the person voting abroad did not also vote in Israel. Extra steps in the process meant that voting took longer than usual.

“It’s complicated,” Netzer said. “Everyone took pictures of themselves voting and sent them to family. I stood in line for more than an hour and a half.”

An interesting figure worth noting is that voter turnout at the diplomatic ballot boxes is far higher than in Israel. In the last elections, 72% of the public in Israel voted, but at the embassies and consulates more than 85% turned out to vote.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 755)