The percentage of the blockage

Section 8 (a) of the Knesset Elections Law determines the percentage of the blockage. Until the amendment of 5752-1992, the threshold percentage was 1%. Since the amendment, the threshold has increased to 1.5%. This means that a list that received less than 1.5% of the total number of valid votes - none of its members will be a Knesset member. In fact, had it not been a blockage, only 0.83% of the valid votes would have been enough to get a "mandate", ie, so that the head of the list would become an MK. Why, then, did the legislator see a need to determine a percentage of eyebrows from this rate and even raise it from one to one-and-a-half?

For those people who gave their votes to the lists, who did not exceed the threshold threshold, the principle of "everyone has one vote" is not fulfilled, thereby effectively undermining the principle of equality. Not only are they not "represented" and their voice is not a partner in strengthening the list they preferred, but this voice, together with the rest of the votes, is lost and the surplus will be distributed among the lists that have passed the threshold. As we saw above, In receiving the excess votes. As a result, the voice of the voter from the group of extra votes helped the list, which he did not choose. It seems to us that there is injustice and distortion of the will of the voter, and perhaps it would be preferable for these voices to emerge from the cycle of the distribution of mandates. In other words, these votes will not be reflected in the election results, rather than be divided into factions in which the voter did not vote. It is clear to us that it is very difficult to conceive of any method, in which there will be no excess votes, in the very existence of excess votes and certainly in the way they serve as an aid to factions for which they were not intended, Although this is an injustice that is necessary and necessitated by the national-proportional system, however, it is not unjust to accept it as it is, but it must be minimized as much as possible. Clearly, the increase in the electoral threshold has exacerbated this injustice (although this increase has advantages of its own).

Furthermore, we add that the percentage of the obstruction also violates the principle of proportionality. Relativity means that the rate of representation of a list in the Knesset is the percentage of the valid votes it received. In practice, the principle of relativity was not entirely maintained, inter alia because of the percentage of the blockage. 18

Nevertheless, it appears that there is great importance to the existence of the electoral threshold. It helps to reduce the number of individual factions, which often constitute a "balance sheet" and a source of political blackmail. It seems unlikely that these factions will have so much power.

From all of the above, it appears that the principle that parliamentary life should be conducted in a manner that is found in as few individual factions as possible should be balanced against the principle that equality and proportionality, as set out in section 4 of the Basic Law: The Knesset, should not be infringed. It is possible that by raising the threshold, this balance was breached.

Since the percentage of the barrier violates the principle of proportional elections, as we have shown above, we would like to make sure that section 81 (a) was passed at all stages of the legislation (except for the preliminary reading) by a majority of Knesset members.

In the opinion of the author, there is room to examine the question of whether it is not appropriate to demand a majority of the House factions instead of making do with a majority of Knesset members; Although this requirement may harm or at least make it difficult for the functioning of the Knesset.