✶ Seat lab · Knesset Elections Law ss.81–82
One country,
one count.
Israel elects all 120 members of the Knesset in a single nationwide constituency, from closed party lists. A list needs 3.25% of the valid vote to take part; the seats are then shared by the Bader–Ofer method, with pairs of lists allowed to pool their leftover votes. Below are the Central Elections Committee's figures for 27 October 2026: change one rule and watch the Knesset move.
— seats for the largest list · 61 for a majority
- Threshold
- —
- General quota
- —
- Leftover seats
- —
- Gallagher index
- —
| List | Votes | Seats | vs actual | Votes to next seat |
|---|
The leftover seats, one at a time (s.81(d))
| Seat | Won by | Votes ÷ (seats + 1) | Next best |
|---|
Votes: CEC per-locality file (incl. double-envelope votes), 5,691,426 valid votes in 2026. Seats recomputed with ss.81–82; with the law as it is they match the certified allocation.
Section 81, step by step · 2026
From 5,691,426 votes
to 120 seats.
- 1 · The threshold (s.81(a))
Only lists with at least 3.25% of all valid votes take part: 184,972 votes in 2026. Eleven of the 38 lists on the ballot passed. The other 27 took 306,478 votes (5.4%), which elected no one — the largest of them, The Reservists and the Economic Party, with 2.7%.
- 2 · The general quota (s.81(b))
The valid votes of the eleven lists, 5,384,948, divided by 120 and rounded down: 44,874 votes buy one seat.
- 3 · Whole quotas (s.81(c))
Each list gets one seat for every full quota it holds. That hands out 115 seats:
- Likud 26
- Yashar 20
- Together 11
- Joint List 11
- Democrats 8
- Ra'am 7
- Yisrael Beiteinu 7
- Otzma 7
- UTJ 6
- Shas 6
- RZP–Zehut 6
- 4 · Surplus agreements (s.82(a))
Before the vote, lists may sign a surplus-vote agreement (הסכם עודפים) in pairs. If both pass the threshold, they count as one list for the leftover seats, with their votes and seats added together. In 2026 five pairs took effect:
- Likud + Religious Zionism–Zehut
- Yashar + The Democrats
- Together + Yisrael Beiteinu
- Joint List + Ra'am
- Shas + United Torah Judaism
- 5 · The leftover seats (s.81(d))
The 5 seats left go one at a time to the list (or pair) with the most votes per seat if it won one more: votes ÷ (seats + 1). That is the D'Hondt rule; Israel's version is named after the two members of the Knesset who proposed it in 1973, Yohanan Bader and Avraham Ofer.
Seat Won by Votes per seat Next best 116 Shas + United Torah Judaism 47,090 Together + Yisrael Beiteinu · 45,761 117 Together + Yisrael Beiteinu 45,761 Likud + Religious Zionism–Zehut · 44,186 118 Likud + Religious Zionism–Zehut 44,186 Yashar + The Democrats · 44,135 119 Yashar + The Democrats 44,135 Joint List + Ra'am · 44,130 120 Joint List + Ra'am 44,130 Shas + United Torah Judaism · 43,726 In 2026 every pair took one leftover seat. The fourth and fifth were decided by a few hundred votes per seat.
- 6 · Inside each pair (s.82(b))
A pair's seats are then split between its two lists by the same method. Then, under s.83, each list's seats go to the first names on it, in order: the voter chooses a list, never a candidate.
Same 2026 votes, other rules
Agreements move
a handful of seats.
Exact proportionality among the eleven lists would give each 120 × its share of their votes. The columns show what each rule does to that.
| List | Exact | Bader–Ofer + deals (law) | No deals | Hare | No threshold |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Likud | 26.02 | 27 | 27 | 26 | 25 |
| Yashar | 20.36 | 21 | 21 | 20 | 19 |
| Together | 11.86 | 12 | 12 | 12 | 12 |
| Joint List | 11.16 | 11 | 11 | 11 | 11 |
| Democrats | 8.16 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 |
| Ra'am | 7.53 | 8 | 7 | 8 | 7 |
| Yisrael Beiteinu | 7.52 | 7 | 7 | 8 | 7 |
| Otzma | 7.28 | 7 | 7 | 7 | 7 |
| UTJ | 6.97 | 7 | 7 | 7 | 7 |
| Shas | 6.67 | 6 | 7 | 7 | 6 |
| RZP–Zehut | 6.47 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 6 |
D'Hondt favours larger lists, so the remainder of every list is worth less than a full quota; pooling it in a pair earns some of it back. Without any threshold The Reservists and the Economic Party would have won 3 , Amcha Yisrael would have won 2 .
The threshold over time
From 1%
to 3.25%.
- 1% 1951–1988
- 1.5% 1992–2003
- 2% 2006–2013
- 3.25% since 2015
The threshold was 1% from the second Knesset election until 1988, then 1.5% from 1992, 2% from 2006 and 3.25% from 2015, when the Knesset raised it in March 2014. In 2015 the main Arab parties answered by running together as the Joint List. Changing the system itself is harder: Basic Law: The Knesset s.4 — elections that are general, national, direct, equal, secret and proportional — can only be amended by 61 members.