Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's cabinet approved draft legislation on Sunday to have cameras monitor polling stations on Sept. 17.
Fighting for political survival after an inconclusive ballot in April, the right-wing Netanyahu has made voter fraud a key issue in his campaign for a fifth term, cautioning that victory could be stolen from him in what polls show to be a close race.
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On election days in Israel, representatives of most parties sit at venues to check the pre-vote identification process. Voters are then handed an envelope and go behind a screen to cast their ballot in private.
Addressing his cabinet on Sunday, Netanyahu said that under the legislation, which will go to parliament for approval before the Sept. 17 election, monitors will be able to use their cellular telephone cameras to record outside the actual voting booth.
"Everyone films," Netanyahu said in public remarks at the meeting. "Any shop is filmed by cameras, so the polling stations are the only places where you can't film?"
In his comments to the cabinet, which government officials said approved the legislation unanimously, Netanyahu pledged: "The secrecy of the vote will be strictly preserved."
Ayman Odeh, head of the Arab Joint List, said on Twitter that Netanyahu's focus on the issue of voter fraud was aimed at "triggering a panic vote" by his supporters on the right and "suppressing the Arab vote."
"[Netanyahu] is preparing the ground for the day he declares, 'Arabs have stolen the elections,' and contests the results if he loses," Odeh said.
Yair Lapid, co-leader of the center-left Blue and White Party, which is running neck-and-neck with Likud in polls, alluded to the impact the deployment of cameras might have on Arab voter turnout, describing the bill as "racist" in comments on Twitter.
The bill was also opposed by Supreme Court Justice Hanan Melcer, head of the Central Election Committee, which oversees the vote, who said the last-minute introduction of cameras might "lead to chaos."
Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit also came out against the legislation, saying it could violate laws ensuring voters' privacy.
