Who decides which party exists? The polls no longer just measure elections | Gadi Yebarkan

An opinion column by Gadi Yebarkan examining the immense power of election polls in shaping the political map, focusing on the question of who determines which parties are included in the poll. Yebarkan argues that polls have transformed from a measuring tool into an instrument that influences the boundaries of political reality, especially for new parties that are not included in polls and therefore do not receive an equal opportunity to be measured.

Gadi Yebarkan raises a fundamental question in his opinion column about the role of election polls in Israel: who decides which parties are included in the poll? He argues that polls have immense power that goes beyond a statistical table – they become headlines, dictate discourse on social networks, and influence the public's perception of the political map. Yebarkan notes that a party not appearing in a poll is not even given the chance to be measured, while established parties benefit from a familiar name, Knesset members, and budgets. He describes a paradox: on one hand, a new party is told it needs significant support to be included in a poll, but on the other hand, such support cannot be measured if it is not included in the question. Yebarkan emphasizes that the public is entitled to know the criteria for inclusion in a poll – whether based on past results, media exposure, number of activists, or the discretion of the media outlet. He notes that in the 2022 elections, more than 417,000 Israelis voted for lists that did not pass the electoral threshold, reminding that polls do not tell the whole story. Yebarkan calls for establishing transparent criteria for relevance in advance, rather than predetermining who is relevant.