Electoral system for national legislature

Israel, Knesset Basic Law 1958, as amended in 1987 [English], accessed 11 April 2019

Article 4. Electoral System

The Knesset shall be elected by general, national, direct, equal, secret and proportional elections, in accordance with the Knesset Elections Law; this section shall not be varied save by a majority of the members of the Knesset.

Israel uses a closed-list proportional representation system in one national constituency. The system was inherited from the political system of the yishuv. At the time of its founding, the rationale for the proportional representation system was to support many parties because the influx of immigrants from a wide range of countries led to a rapidly changing Israeli polity.

Each party internally determines the order of the candidate on its party list before the election and voters cast their votes for a single “list” of candidates. Seats are then allocated according to the Hare quota and greatest average.

For years, Israel’s electoral system has become a point of contention, where opponents criticize the system’s tendency to favour small parties over large ones and for granting a disproportionate amount of power to fringe ideological groups. It has become such a salient issue that politicians have campaigned on electoral reform.