The Israeli election is too close to call

Israel held elections today. Both sides are claiming victory. Neither can claim it conclusively.

Exit polls suggest that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party will win 33 seats in Parliament while the Blue and White Party of former military chief of staff Benny Gantz will win 37 (though one exit poll shows the two parties winning the same number of seats). However, it takes 60 seats to form a government. Exit exit polls indicate that parties aligned with Netanyahu’s will win at least that number (though one exit poll showed a tie).

But these are just exit polls. What about actual votes?

With 833,932 votes counted, Netanyahu’s Likud party had received 241,386 votes, or 29.15 percent, to 209,301 votes, or 25.27 percent, for Blue and White party. However, there were still a great number of votes to be counted. In any case, the winner won’t be determined by which of the two main parties gets more of the popular vote.

We will have close to final results later this evening (U.S. times), but even then there’s a good chance we won’t know who the next Israeli Prime Minister will be for quite some time thereafter.

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