Dec 10, 2013
A person's democratic right to not vote in Bet Shemesh
I've been casually following the proceedings in the court case of the Bet Shemesh election fraud (via some websites and via few journalists updating on twitter and Facebook).
To be honest, most of what has been said, by both sides, is pretty boring and exactly as was expected. There was fraud, there was not fraud, there was this much fraud, there was that much fraud, evidence is strong enough, evidence is not strong enough...
There was one argument Attorney Yaakov Veinrot, representing Moshe Abutbol as respondent to the petition, said that surprised me. He said:
I represent the mayor, and not the various parties that are here. The results regarding Abutbol are definite, that even if all the real owners of the captured identity cards had come themselves to vote, they definitely would have voted for Abutbol. Even if 956 votes, which is the differential between the candidates, had not come to vote at all, they would have a tie and a no decision. The fraud had no affect on the results.
Being that the real owners did not come to vote, I do not understand how he can claim them as Abutbol voters, if they would vote. Shmuel Pappenheim, a leader in that specific community, declared openly his support for Eli Cohen (despite not actually voting) and has expressed more than once how Abutbol is bad for the city. Maybe others in his community think the same or would have been influenced by him - "if they were to vote". Maybe some like Abutbol and some do not, for any other reason. Maybe they would have voted Abutbol, maybe not. How can he claim them as Abutbol voters. How does he know what they would have done if they would have voted?
And, don't they have the right to not vote? Living in a democracy allows one to take part in the democratic process of participating in elections. Just like a person has the right to express his opinion via his vote, he also has the right to express his opinion by withholding his vote. If they choose not to vote, it means they also do not want to vote for Abutbol - for whatever reason.
He cannot seriously be claiming that their non-votes should be counted in a way that will help Abutbol (not by actually adding their numbers but by saying what would have been). Can he?
To be honest, most of what has been said, by both sides, is pretty boring and exactly as was expected. There was fraud, there was not fraud, there was this much fraud, there was that much fraud, evidence is strong enough, evidence is not strong enough...
There was one argument Attorney Yaakov Veinrot, representing Moshe Abutbol as respondent to the petition, said that surprised me. He said:I represent the mayor, and not the various parties that are here. The results regarding Abutbol are definite, that even if all the real owners of the captured identity cards had come themselves to vote, they definitely would have voted for Abutbol. Even if 956 votes, which is the differential between the candidates, had not come to vote at all, they would have a tie and a no decision. The fraud had no affect on the results.
Being that the real owners did not come to vote, I do not understand how he can claim them as Abutbol voters, if they would vote. Shmuel Pappenheim, a leader in that specific community, declared openly his support for Eli Cohen (despite not actually voting) and has expressed more than once how Abutbol is bad for the city. Maybe others in his community think the same or would have been influenced by him - "if they were to vote". Maybe some like Abutbol and some do not, for any other reason. Maybe they would have voted Abutbol, maybe not. How can he claim them as Abutbol voters. How does he know what they would have done if they would have voted?
And, don't they have the right to not vote? Living in a democracy allows one to take part in the democratic process of participating in elections. Just like a person has the right to express his opinion via his vote, he also has the right to express his opinion by withholding his vote. If they choose not to vote, it means they also do not want to vote for Abutbol - for whatever reason.
He cannot seriously be claiming that their non-votes should be counted in a way that will help Abutbol (not by actually adding their numbers but by saying what would have been). Can he?
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I think his point might be that these people knew what they were giving up their T.Z.'s for and didn't mind, they just didn't want to be seen to be going to the polling stations themselves.
ReplyDeleteRafi - On what site are u following the proceedings?
ReplyDeletea combination of a few journalists on twitter and facebook, along with Bechadrei and Kikar
DeleteRafi,
ReplyDeleteCertainly pales in being pathetic to a statement reportedly made by the AG that they heard from one suspect that somebody had 100's of other tz's in a big.
Complete heresay that has no business being uttered in a court of law. The man should be ashamed for making such a statement with nothing to back it up.
This is making a mockery out of a sick judicial system.
Let's hope the judges see through this farce and throw this out today so beit shemesh can move on.
Rafi,
ReplyDeleteI know that you mean something like: How can this lawyer have the Chutzpah to make such a claim.
However, in answer to the the literal meaning of your question, "He cannot seriously be claiming that their non-votes should be counted in a way that will help Abutbol. Can he?" I would say: He is a lawyer, paid to help a certain side, so he certainly can be claiming such a weird claim if he thinks that "by hook or by crook" it can help his side win!
I remember in the Watergate hearings, when Senator Daniel Inouye was heard saying something about one of President Nixon's lawyer's which sounded like, "What a liar," though he claimed that he actually said, "What a lawyer." The point is that, to most people, there isn't much difference between the 2 versions of Inouye's statement.
People expect lawyers to say whatever they think might possibly help their client even if it is is totally off-the-wall.
What most people do not seem to pay attention to (including Mayor Abutbul) is that Abutbul is not truly a party to this lawsuit. Since he might not end up mayor if the lawsuit is accepted, he has hired people to fight against the lawsuit; but the lawsuit is about whether there was "serious" cheating in this election or not.
Abutbul claims to have participated in no cheating himself and to be against cheating, and, so far, I have not heard that he has personally been implicated in any of the cheating. So, theoretically, Abutbul should be in favor of the lawsuit, since the Police investigation seems to indicate that enough cheating was going on to make it quite likely that it affected the result of the elction; and Abutbul should not want to gain his mayorship in a "tainted" manner.
It is just that the cheating, which appears to have been a well-organized network of vote-fixing, seems to have been set up in order to help him become mayor again (and to help Chareidi parties get extra votes).
So, apparently (as was suggested by a different lawyer in something I saw linked to on Facebook), Abutbul's lawyer is just trying to "confuse the issue" by saying that Abutbul would have been elected even without the cheating (which is basically impossible to prove, just as the opposite is basically impossible to prove), and he is using this "Chelm logic" to make his point.
All of this ignores the many other problems with the Bet Shemesh mayoral elections, e.g.:
a. Polling places which were inexplicably closed down at times during the day. (Could Eli Cohen have gotten more votes if they were open? People in Eli Cohen's camp claim these were polling places where he was expected to get a great deal of votes; and anyway it is certainly an election violation to have a polling place not operating when it should).
b. Eli Cohen voting slips missing from polling places, such that more slips had to be printed up during voting day. (Were there voters who would have voted for Eli Cohen but didn't get the chance because hsi slips were missing?)
c. Voting count irregularities (including one polling place where more votes were counted than people who voted!)
It appears to me that there is a lot for the court to work on, and that the illegal voting with the TZs of people who are opposed to voting at all is not the main issue here anyway.
It also appears to me that the decision could indeed go in any of several different directions, and could then be appealed to the Supreme Court by either of the (or both) sides.
But, I think that you can always assume that a lawyer will, when necessary, come up with creative reasoning to try to convince the court to rule in favor of his client!
Bivrachah,
Catriel Lev, Ramat Bet Shemesh Alef
perhaps a lawyer could explain how this works exactly, but Abutbol and the various Haredi parties were named as respondents in the petition. they arent being sued, but they are the respondents to the claims.
DeleteI heard that too.
DeleteI think that it has to do with Abutbul having been declared mayor, while a new election would mean that he isn't (yet) mayor unless he wins the new election.
Also some Chareidi parties were actually accused of organizing vote-fixing in order to get more votes for their party.
However, the fact remains that the main issue here is the integrity of the elections, not who won, nor which party received more City Council seats; and it does seem clear that there was an organized attempt to impair the integrity of the election which seems likely to have altered at least some of the results.
Bivrachah,
Catriel
Interestingly enough, in the ynet article on the court case which I just saw, in Hebrew, here:
Deletehttp://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-4463556,00.html
Mayor Abutbul is quoted as saying: If there were 1,000 true vote forgeries, and not just general, unspecified claims, new elections should be held.
Also, Eli Cohen's lawyer, Eitan Haberman, claimed that it has been proven that there were irregularities in two thirds of the polling places!
This gets "curiouser and curiouser"! We never dreamed when we moved to Bet Shemesh that we were moving into the new Chicago of Israel (though soon after we moved here Mayor Dani Vaknin's shenanigans showed us that something of the sort was going on).
Bivrachah,
Catriel
The main point of the ynet article is that there are a whopping 30 known unauthentic votes. The rest is all speculation and conspiracy theory. In a very election there is a winner and a loser. In this election if the Cohen campaign continues with this nonsense there will only be losers.
ReplyDeleteyou cant really believe the entire case is based on 30 identity cards.. can you? thats been the haredi position all along, but I dont believe the court would have allowed it to get this far if thats all they had.
ReplyDeletedid you read the AGs report? he had a lot of other incidents in there as well. I have no idea how much hard evidence he has for what incidents, but the case is based on much more than just 30 identity cards.
Anyways, the session today ended with an admission by the AGs people that they have more evidence that they had kept secret and hadnt shared with the other side. The court is giving them 2 days to give it over to the other side, then 6 days for them to review it and come back to court with a response (next wednesday I think), and then they will make their decision.
Sure I believe that Rafi, because until now and even today that is the only evidence that was presented. Everything else that has been presented is pure conjecture. Why are they hiding things from the judges and the other side. If they had any real hard evidence they should have presented it t today
ReplyDeleteIt is sad that a lawyer in court of law will defend election shenanigans and stand behind speculation and assumption - "they definitely would have voted for Abutbol."
ReplyDelete"Even if 956 votes, " Actually, if half of that were votes stolen from Eli Cohen, then we have a tie.
For anyone with some election experience, it is very important to have people from your party supervising the vote counting as well as TZs coming in the door.
I'm prepared to accept his logic, as long as they also count everyone who didn't vote but would have voted for Cohen if they had.
ReplyDeleteRafi, you're right that the quote doesn't make any sense. It's also apparently not what he said. What he actually said is that you can't assume those people would have voted for Cohen. That means that you have to find 974 invalid votes. You can't find 487 votes that went for Abutbol and assume that they would have otherwise gone for Cohen. That's a legitimate argument.
ReplyDeletethen he was misquoted in the media, but your version does make more sense as a reasonable claim. Still, I dont think non-votes can or should be counted towards anybody's favor.
DeleteIt seems to me a bit problematic - democratically, morally, halachikly and maybe even legally - if the court accepts the position put forward by Abutbul and Co., as is presented in all the Chareidi newspapers and media (and jack here in these comments) that it is alright (!?) to lie, steal, cheat and forge election votes (for the right cause of course) as long as the opponent cannot prove in a court of law beyond all reasonable doubt - that there were enough proven false votes to affect the election results.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all if there were one person who had "cheated" nobody would be protesting the results.
DeleteIf Moshe had won by 5000 votes nobody would have been protesting the results.
The only reason for a protest is because some people think the alleged fraud had an impact on the results.
So naturally, one would have to show to whatever extent is required by law (I don't know exactly what that is) that
a. There really was fraud (not just allegations, etc.)
b. The fraud was of a large enough scale to have impacted the results.
To date the only evidence provided is 30 some votes. If there is more real provable (whatever that means in Israeli law) then show it. Yesterday that clearly didn't happen.
And of course lying, cheating, stealing is not acceptable.
But if the lying, cheating, etc. was of such a small scale that it didn't affect the outcome of the election then it's equally as wrong to interfere with the democratic process because some people didn't like the results.
Nobody as Y above states says it is ok..
I never quoted anyone saying that it is OK to lie and steal, but, as i said, the issue is not presented as i would have expected from anyone who has any shred of Torah, mitzvot or yirat shmayim (or "Chareid" - whatever that means). I would have expected the Chareidi media to scream and be in shock that religious Jews could do such a thing (no alleged - they did and they were caught). Abutbul himself should have called for new elections to show his "claen hands" and that he won the elections fairly. All the "Chen" members should have resigned in shame. All the Agudah members of keneset should have called for a vaadat chakirah...
Deletebut instead all i hear is "yes we cheated - but we would have won anyways", "there were only 30/40/160/200 fake votes - not enough to affect the outcome of the elections", "everyone else (i.e. chilonim shabbat desecraters and treif eaters) also does it", "It can't be proved in court..not enough evidence.....blah, blah, blah.
Much as I would like re-elections and for Eli Cohen to win, it may not happen. Even if it did, the division of Beit Shemesh 50-50 between charedim and the others remains, and it is impossible to dissect Beit Shemesh into 2 cities. What is needed is for these 2 respectable men, who both I'm sure love Beit Shemesh with all their heart, to sit down together and to sign a peace treaty, so that both populations can continue to live together in mutual respect and understanding. Maybe I am being naive, but that is what is needed.
ReplyDeleteMaybe naive meir should become "mayor" he's speaking very reasonably.
Deleteas I understand it, based on what I heard from people who were there and others who werent but are close to the case, it seems the main argument between Abutbols lawyers and Cohens lawyers is focused on the level of evidence needed.
ReplyDeleteAbutbols lawyers are arguig that this should be treated almost like a criminal case, because inessence overturning elections is almost just that, and a very high level of evidence should be required, and the numbers are important (i.e. it must be shown that the numbers are significant enough to actually make a difference).
Cohens lawyers are arguing that this is not a criminal case so the burden of proof and evidence should be much lower and it is enough to show a trendof consipiracy and attempt to defraud the elections. Their argument is also in the name of upholding democracy and fair elections.
the courts seem to favor the numbers argument, and being that there is little precedent for overturning an entire city's election and it could reflect poorly on israel to do so, that may be the direction they are heading. Though obviously eith er side can be persuasive enough so this is clearly not definite. However, they also have other options such overturning or invalidating some ballot boxes, depending on how much fraud Cohens lawyers show the courts..