JERUSALEM. On Tuesday the species voted in secret, and at 22:00, as the last stations closed, its broadcasters announced what it had done. Not the count; the count is days away. An exit poll: voters interviewed on their way out, received by the nation as the result. Three surveys agreed on one finding: no clear winner.
The mechanism is uncontroversial. Interviewers with tablets stand at the doors of polling stations and ask each departing voter how they voted. The secret ballot ends at the threshold. "Secrecy lasts about four meters," said Dr. Miri Shapira, Head of Electoral Sampling for a broadcaster's decision desk. "After four meters, the neighbor works for us. In eleven years, no voter has reached meter five still holding one."
Our observation post opened at 07:00 outside polling station 447 in the Katamon district. By the 22:00 close the log held 312 voters, one party observer's badge at a distance the regulations do not mention, and, at minute nine, the queue's fourth apology. The apology count finished at fourteen, a figure no one else will ever count. The log also held 41 departing voters asking our interviewers who had won; the species had just decided, and wished to be told its decision. The evening's exit polls gave the opposition bloc led by Gadi Eisenkot a narrow edge over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud, projected Likud as the largest single party in the 120-seat Knesset, and gave gains to the Arab parties. Being largest is not the same as being in charge. No one on screen appeared troubled.
The emotions had been arranged in advance. At a party headquarters in Petah Tikva, two rooms have been held since August. "Same catering, same playlist," said Noa Berger, Deputy Coordinator of Event Logistics for one of the larger lists. "One hall is labeled Victory. One is labeled Continuity. Continuity has the better parking, which is how you know which one we expect. It also has the door nearer the highway, which is how we know what else we expect." Both rooms carry a waiting list, Form Q-2, the queue of the queue.
A no-clear-winner moves the real decision to a smaller queue: party leaders negotiating partners indoors, the election held again with fewer people and no one to apologize to. Eli Aharon, at a late-night felafel stand, summarized the schedule with total serenity: "Today we voted. Tonight we learn what we did. In a week we learn if it mattered. The week is the important part."
Our log ends at 00:14. A voter returned to the shuttered station 447, knocked, and asked the volunteer stacking chairs who had won. He told her. She nodded, thanked him, left satisfied. We did not record which answer. "Same as the television," the volunteer said, picking up another chair. "But closer."
