Israel’s Central Elections Committee announced a short while ago that as of 12 p.m. local time, 1,925,393 Israelis had voted at polling stations, i.e., 28.4% of eligible voters. It is the highest noon voting rate seen in Israel since the 1999 elections. In comparison, 25.4% of eligible voters had cast their vote by the same time in the March 2021 elections.

The high voting rate was visible already earlier this morning, when the Central Elections Committee announced that by 10 a.m., 15.9% of eligible voters had arrived to the polling stations, the highest number in Israeli elections for that hour since 1981. In the last elections, 14.8% of eligible voters exercised their right to vote by that time.

Voting rates have considerably dropped in Israel since the 1980s and 1990s, decreasing from around 78% by at least 10 points. In the 2021 elections, only 67.2% Israelis voted, compared to a record of 97.9% in 1988, shortly after the outbreak of the first intifada. As a result of those elections, Israel was governed by a unity government of the Likud and Labor parties.

Casting his vote this morning in Jerusalem, President Isaac Herzog said, "My wife and I exercised our democratic right to vote. It is a privilege to participate in the process of free elections, clean and equal elections. Billions of people around the world do not enjoy this privilege. Without a shadow of a doubt, all votes have an impact. Anyone who thinks his or her vote does not matter is wrong."