Step 1 of 5 · Population and Immigration Authority
The notice
Before the election every voter is sent a notice (הודעה לבוחר) with the address of their polling station. You vote only there, at the station where you are registered.
✶ How to vote · Knesset elections · polls open 07:00–22:00
A slip,
a blue envelope.
Every Israeli citizen aged 18 or over may vote. There is no voter registration to do, no postal vote and, for most citizens abroad, no voting outside Israel. On election day you show ID at your polling station, take one printed slip from the tray behind the screen, and drop it into the box in its envelope. On 27 October 2026, 5,717,397 of 7,331,981 voters did (78.0%).
Who votes
Citizens,
in Israel.
-
18 and a citizen
"Every Israeli citizen of eighteen years or over" may vote for the Knesset unless a court has taken the right away (Basic Law: The Knesset s.5). Citizens on the population register are on the voter register automatically.
Basic Law: The Knesset s.5 -
Only in Israel
Voting takes place only on Israel's territory, on Israeli ships and at Israel's diplomatic missions (Elections Law s.6). Missions are for state employees posted abroad and their families; other citizens abroad must come home to vote. There is no postal vote.
Elections Law ss.6, 116H -
Where it applies
Arab citizens of Israel vote like every other citizen. Israeli citizens living in West Bank settlements vote at polling stations in the settlements. Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza do not vote in Knesset elections. Most Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem hold permanent residency, not citizenship, so they cannot vote for the Knesset; they may vote in Jerusalem's municipal elections.
Basic Law: The Knesset s.5 · Local Authorities (Elections) Law -
Check your details
Your eligibility and polling station are on the notice you are sent, and on the Population and Immigration Authority's official service. This site does not look anyone up.
Population and Immigration Authority ↗
Election day
Election day
From the door to the box
What happens at your polling station.
Step 2 of 5 · The polling committee
Identify yourself
Show an identity card, a valid Israeli passport, a valid driving licence with a photo, a Knesset member's card or a valid military ID. The secretary crosses your name off the list and notes the time (Elections Law s.74).
Step 3 of 5 · The polling committee
One blue envelope
The committee hands you one opaque envelope, blue unless the Central Elections Committee decides otherwise (s.74A).
Step 4 of 5 · You, alone
Behind the screen
Behind the screen is a tray with a compartment of printed slips for every list, marked with its letters. Put one slip in the envelope — or write a list's letters on a blank slip in blue pen (s.76) — and seal it.
Step 5 of 5 · In front of the committee
Into the box
Drop the envelope into the ballot box in the committee's sight (s.75). The count at each box begins when it closes; official results follow within eight days.
Try it · the 2026 slips
What counts,
what does not.
A printed slip carries only the list's letters, or its letters and name, as the Central Elections Committee approved them (s.76(a)). Behind the screen the tray holds every list on the ballot — 38 in 2026.
Try it · behind the screen · the 2026 ballot
Fill the envelope
Take a slip from the tray (tap again to add another), or write your own on a blank slip. Tap a slip in the envelope to put it back.
The envelope
Up to three identical slips count once; slips for two lists, any identifying mark, a foreign envelope or a slip in another pen make the vote invalid. Letters are those approved for 2026; a list's Arabic letters may also appear on its slip (s.76(b)).
Double envelopes · 452,687 votes in 2026
Voting away
from your station.
Some voters cannot reach the station on their notice. They vote elsewhere in a double envelope: the usual blue envelope goes inside an outer one bearing their details, so the Central Elections Committee can check they have not voted twice before the inner envelope is counted. In 2026 these "outer envelopes" (מעטפות חיצוניות) held 452,687 votes, 7.9% of the total, counted after election night.
Soldiers
At polling stations on bases, from the days before the election (ss.90–91).
Police and prison staff
Officers on duty vote in special stations (s.95).
Prisoners and detainees
Stations in prisons (s.116B); people held in army custody, too (s.95B).
Hospital patients
Stations in hospitals (s.116M); people with limited mobility in care homes (s.116Q1).
Accessible stations
Every locality has at least one station accessible to people with limited mobility, and more in large towns; they may vote at any such station (s.68A).
Diplomats and emissaries
State employees posted abroad and their families vote at Israel's missions on the 12th day before election day — 15 October in 2026 (s.116H).
Ships' crews
On Israeli vessels (s.97 and following).
Committee members and observers
Those working at a station other than their own (s.116S); evacuees displaced by the security situation vote at dedicated stations (s.116Q10).
Elections Law s.78
Invalid
votes.
The wrong slip
A slip that is not as the law and the Committee prescribe — another size, colour or printing — or a blank slip written other than in blue pen with only a list's letters (s.78(a)(1)–(2)).
A mark
Anything on a slip or in the envelope that could identify the voter (s.78(a)(3)).
Two lists
More than one slip, unless they are identical and no more than three, which then count once (s.78(a)(4)).
The wrong envelope
An envelope the committee did not supply, or a double envelope that reaches the Central Elections Committee after the day after election day (s.78(a)(5)–(6)).
In 2026, 25,971 votes were invalid (0.45% of those cast).
Access
Help
in the booth.
A companion
A voter who because of illness or disability cannot handle the slips alone may bring a companion, recorded in the minutes; a companion may help no more than two voters, and may not be the manager or an employee of the care home where the voter lives (s.75(b)).
Accessible stations
At least one per locality, at least two where there are more than 20 stations, and one for every area of about 10,000 residents in large towns, with two reserved parking places (s.68A).
Hebrew or Arabic
A list may print its approved Arabic letters and name beside the Hebrew; a voter may write a blank slip in Hebrew, Arabic or both (s.76(b)–(c)).