In mid-August, Likud's legal counsel sent a warning letter to the AID Coalition (a U.S.-based civic body), demanding that the latter shut down "Fly & Vote," the nonprofit's campaign to help Israeli citizens abroad travel home to vote in the 27 October election. The letter accused the initiative of offering voters an unlawful benefit that could constitute election bribery and a prohibited campaign contribution. It also asked the Central Elections Committee to review the group's legality and data practices.
AID Coalition rejected the charges. It described itself as a nonpartisan effort that helps people navigate flights, paperwork, and logistics, noting that it does not screen participants' political ideologies. The exchange is a small skirmish in a much larger campaign, but it points to something worth taking seriously. As Israel heads into one of its more closely fought elections in years, getting citizens to the ballot box has become its own front in the race.
This dispute makes sense when one considers an unusual feature of Israel's political system. Israel is one of the few democracies without general absentee voting. Aside from diplomats, official emissaries, and sailors aboard Israeli-flagged ships, every registered citizen, no matter where they live, must appear in person at their assigned polling station in Israel to cast their ballot. For a country with an estimated half-million eligible voters living abroad, that rule turns a routine act of citizenship into a logistical and financial undertaking that involves a flight, time off work, and often a place to stay upon landing.
Mobilising voters from abroad is not new in Israeli politics, but how it is done and how much the law tolerates have shifted considerably over three decades. The closest 1996 contest between Benjamin Netanyahu and Shimon Peres was particularly notable. Both the religious and right-wing parties and their left-wing rivals chartered flights and covered airfare to bring home yeshiva students, expatriates, and other sympathetic voters. However, this practice did not last long, thanks to stricter interpretations of the Party Financing Law and the Elections (Modes of Propaganda) Law, which treated free or subsidised travel arranged by a political party as an illegal contribution or an improper benefit to voters. Once direct party funding became illegal, the work of turning out overseas voters shifted to outside nonprofits and civic campaigns.
Today's model reflects that history. Groups like the AIDS Coalition now operate as logistical units rather than as ticket-payers, handling group-rate negotiations, charter capacity, and housing coordination. At the same time, voters are expected to cover their own airfare. It is designed to withstand the legal scrutiny that killed the earlier subsidy model, though Likud's letter shows that even this arms-length distinction is being contested. According to media reports, the AIDS Coalition had earlier considered chartering free or low-cost flights, but its legal advisers deemed the move bordering on bribery. Thus, the group dropped the idea to avoid the challenge it now faces.
The calculations behind the current fight are straightforward enough to explain why a normally under-the-radar logistics operation has drawn a formal legal threat from the sitting prime minister's own party. Roughly half a million Israeli citizens abroad are eligible to vote. Because of how Israel's voting system works, winning a single seat in parliament usually requires about 36,000 to 38,000 votes. The AID Coalition is targeting between 50,000 and 70,000 returning voters. This could swing roughly one to one-and-a-half parliamentary seats. In a house where forming a government requires 61 of 120 seats, a swing of one or two seats can make the difference between a ruling coalition and an opposition bloc. Voter turnout is precisely the kind of margin that becomes a legal target.
The timing sharpens the stakes. This will be the first Israeli election since 1988 in which a government has served a full term, and it is widely read as a referendum on Netanyahu's handling of the aftermath of the 7 October attacks. Polls show Likud trailing its historical highs. This explains why Likud doesn't view this campaign as neutral. Since Israelis living abroad tend to be younger and more liberal, the ruling party sees it as an operation to boost opposition votes. That suspicion has not stayed confined to a warning letter. Around the time of the legal threat, reports emerged that the Transportation Ministry was considering cutting flight capacity before the election. Critics argue this is a backdoor attempt to block returning voters, since the law won't let them do it openly.
AID Coalition argues that it doesn't screen anyone's politics and only works to improve turnout among a group that faces a higher structural barrier to voting than citizens who have never left the country. The Central Elections Committee and the courts will either support Likud's bribery and campaign-finance theory or AID Coalition's self-portrayal as neutral civic infrastructure. The dispute reflects a key reality of proportional systems governed by coalition arithmetic: voter turnout itself, not just voter preference, becomes a battleground for electoral strategy and legal challenges.
Mohammed Shoaib Raza is a doctoral candidate at the Centre for West Asian Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.
