Divided We Stand: The Electoral System and Voter Turnout in Israel, 2019–2022
摘要
This chapter examines the relationship between Israel’s highly proportional electoral system and voter turnout rates during five consecutive elections held between 2019 and 2022, a period characterized by unprecedented electoral frequency and political instability. It investigates how the extreme proportionality of the electoral system, marked by a single nationwide district and low electoral threshold, influences voter behaviour and turnout patterns. Although the national voter turnout in the final election of 2022 remained relatively high at 70 per cent, an in-depth analysis of these five elections highlights significant disparities across different social groups and localities. Employing quantitative methods, this research assesses voter turnout across various demographic variables including ethnicity, socioeconomic status, geographical peripherality, locality size, and religiosity, notably the ultra-Orthodox Jewish population. The analysis reveals that while Israel’s proportional representation system encourages robust voter participation among specific sectors such as ultra-Orthodox Jews, it simultaneously contributes to voter fatigue, particularly in peripheral, lower socioeconomic, and Arab localities. Additionally, political fragmentation resulting from the highly proportional system affects electoral participation, illustrating complex interactions between electoral design and voter behaviour. The findings offer deeper insights into how electoral systems can simultaneously foster and hinder democratic participation, highlighting the multifaceted impacts of proportional representation in contexts of political fragmentation and frequent elections.