Likud court orders partial recount of primary votes

The Likud’s court ordered the party to recount votes from its central committee in light of discrepancies, over a week after the primary.

The 3,200 Likud central committee members voted on the regional representatives on the party’s list, four of whom are in spots with realistic chances of being members of the next Knesset.

The court ordered a full recount of those votes, after the previously released numbers featured more votes than central committee members. The recount must begin by 9 a.m. on Thursday.

Two of the winning regional candidates are union organizers – Eti Attiya of Israel Aerospace Industries and Pinchas Idan of the Airports Authority Workers Committee – tied to Labor and Social Services Minister Haim Katz, considered a powerful figure in the party.

Throughout Wednesday, a retyping of Likud primary votes took place in Tel Aviv.

Rather than recounting all the votes, the hand-counted results from around the country were re-entered into the party’s computers, because discrepancies were found in comparing the hand-written forms to the computerized results.

At press time, with two-thirds of the votes re-entered, Tourism Minister Yariv Levin had moved up to seventh place from eighth, bumping Aliyah and Integration Minister Yoav Gallant down one, Katz jumped to 13th from 15th, MK David Amsalem leapt to 14th from 18th, and there were other, smaller shifts up to 20th place, with the same MKs staying in or out of the Knesset.

The overall irregularities found so far were in less than 300 of more than 69,000 votes on the national list.