From the Zionist Congress to the Solberg letter: 100 years of battles over election integrity

The article reviews a century of struggles over election integrity in Israel, from the Zionist Congress in 1929 to the Shin Bet investigation ordered by Judge Solberg in 2026. It focuses on the forgery affair in the 1988 elections, where dozens of excess envelopes were found in two polling stations, leading to repeat elections in 1991.

The article surveys a hundred years of battles over election integrity in Israel, from the 16th Zionist Congress in 1929 to the Shin Bet investigation ordered by Judge Solberg in 2026. It focuses on the forgery affair in the 1988 elections for the 12th Knesset, where the Tehiya party claimed that forgeries in two polling stations in Bnei Brak and Ramat Gan cost it a seat. The vote margin was only 34 votes, and the Supreme Court ruled in 1991 that repeat elections must be held in those polling stations after dozens of excess envelopes were found. The article also mentions other historical events: allegations of forgeries in the 1929 Zionist Congress elections, the disappearance of ballots in the 1944 Jerusalem community committee elections, and Likud's claims of forgeries in the 2019–2020 elections, which were rejected by the Central Elections Committee. The current framework is the Shin Bet investigation on suspicion of foreign funding.