Soldier turnout in Israel's election reached 79.9%, the IDF says

Turnout among soldiers in Israel's national election reached 79.9%, according to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), the country's military. The figure was published by the IDF spokesperson after polls closed and was reported by The Times of Israel, which said the military described this as an increase of 6.2% on the 2022 election.

The military says voting for its personnel began a week before election day. According to Emanuel Fabian, the Times of Israel military correspondent, conscripts, career soldiers and reservists cast ballots at more than 890 polling stations set up on military bases at home and abroad, with positions inside the Gaza Strip, Lebanon and Syria among the locations he named.

What the IDF statement says

The Hebrew text of the IDF spokesperson's summary, carried by the News.co.il channel, frames the result as covering the election for the 26th Knesset. It gives the turnout as 79.9% of all serving personnel and compares it with the vote for the 25th Knesset, which is the 2022 election referred to in the English reports.

The statement says more than 890 military ballot boxes operated from the start of army voting the previous week through election day, spread across bases and units around the country. It adds that roughly a quarter of these were mobile polling stations. The military presented the operation as part of an effort to let everyone in uniform exercise their democratic right to vote, with stations deployed both inside the country and in what it called the combat arenas.

The Hebrew broadcaster N12 published the same headline figures from its correspondent Nitzan Shapira, crediting a photograph to the IDF spokesperson. Ynet's alerts channel rounded the result to about 80%, with the same rise of about 6.2%.

The Knesset and the military vote

The Knesset is Israel's parliament, and its members are chosen in national elections in which voters pick party lists rather than individual candidates. Each newly elected parliament is numbered in sequence, which is why the IDF refers to this vote as the election for the 26th Knesset and the previous one as the 25th.

Because many soldiers are on duty far from the polling station assigned to their home address, the military runs its own ballot stations. The reports describe this system as starting a week ahead of the civilian election day, allowing troops on bases, in field units and on deployment to vote without leaving their posts. The inclusion of mobile stations, which the IDF says made up about a quarter of the total, is intended to reach units that are not at a fixed base.

The IDF draws on three broad groups of personnel, all of which the reports say took part: conscripts doing compulsory service, career soldiers on longer-term contracts, and reservists who are called up from civilian life.

Where soldiers voted

The sources differ slightly in how they describe the reach of the military polling network. Fabian's report says some stations operated outside Israel and identifies Gaza, Lebanon and Syria as places where troops voted. The IDF's Hebrew statement, as carried by News.co.il and N12, describes the stations as spread across bases and units in the country and in the combat arenas, without naming specific territories. The two descriptions are not contradictory, but only one of them names locations.

What the reports do not say

The reports do not give the number of soldiers who voted or the total number eligible, so the 79.9% figure cannot be converted into a headcount from this material. They also do not specify whether the increase of 6.2% refers to percentage points or to a relative rise; the 2022 baseline turnout among soldiers is not stated.

None of the reports gives a breakdown by type of service, such as conscripts compared with reservists, or by location. They do not say how the soldiers voted or when the military ballots will be counted and added to the national results. Overall national turnout for the election is not mentioned in this material.

All of the figures originate with the IDF itself. The reports relay the military's statement and do not cite any independent body, such as the Central Elections Committee, confirming them.