How many votes is a mandate? This is how ballots in the polling station become Knesset seats

The article explains how election votes are converted into Knesset seats: the general divisor calculation, the electoral threshold, the Bader-Ofer method for distributing remaining mandates, and the role of surplus agreements in allocating additional seats.

The article provides a detailed explanation of the method by which voters' ballots become Knesset seats. It opens by defining the term 'mandate' as one seat in the Knesset, and explains that the 120 seats are distributed proportionally to the number of valid votes received by each list that passed the electoral threshold (3.25%). The basic calculation, known as the 'general divisor', is dividing the number of valid votes for lists that passed the threshold by 120. For example, if there are 4.5 million such votes, the divisor will be about 37,500 votes per mandate. However, this number changes from one election to another, and depends on the number of valid votes and the share of votes given to lists that did not pass the threshold. After the initial division, seats remain undistributed. These are allocated by the Bader-Ofer method, which gives priority to the large parties and takes into account the surplus agreements signed between lists before the election. These agreements allow two lists to combine their surplus votes in order to receive an additional mandate, even if in the simple calculation they would not have been entitled to it. The article emphasizes that the final number of votes required for a mandate is determined only after all votes are counted.