With most of the results in the 2019 Knesset election tallied Thursday morning, New Right co-founders Naftali Bennett and Ayelet Shaked still hadn't secured a spot in the 21st Knesset.
In the early morning hours, after the soldiers' votes were counted, it had appeared that New Right had passed the Knesset threshold.
However, due to a "malfunction" on the Central Election Committee's website, "New Right still needs 1,000 votes," committee member Avraham Webber told Army Radio. Likud MK David Bitan, meanwhile, said New Right only needed 400 votes to pass the electoral threshold.
On Wednesday morning, when it initially appeared his party had failed to make it past the minimum threshold, Bennett said the soldiers' votes would decide his fate. It still remains to be seen whether this prediction was well-founded.
Speaking to reporters outside his home in Raanana on Wednesday, Bennett said: "All my life, I've given all I could for the sake of this good people. I was always a soldier of the state. As a combat soldier in [the elite commando unit] Sayeret Matkal, as a high-tech entrepreneur, as education minister and as a cabinet member during Operation Protective Edge.
"Now the soldiers will decide where I will continue to fight on their behalf. What is certain is that I will never stop giving everything [I have] to the State of Israel."
IDF soldiers comprise approximately 5% of voters and soldiers' votes have been enough to change electoral results in previous elections.
In addition to soldiers' ballots, votes cast by the disabled at accessible polling locations; hospital patients; prisoners; Israeli Navy personnel; and diplomats and government representatives abroad are also counted after the regular polls close at 10 p.m. the day of an election, and can all affect the final results.
