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After months of campaigning, slogans, jingles, signs plastered everywhere, scattered campaign leaflets blowing through the streets, telephone calls interrupting one's evening for the latest poll or taped propaganda spiel, smears and counter smears and counter-counter smears via every possible media, it is finally over. Elections were held yesterday (Tuesday 11 November) and today the results are in. Meir Itzhak Halevy will continue serving a second term as Mayor of Eilat.
Table from Ministry of Interior's table of final results:
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Candidate
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Percentage of votes
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Number of votes
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Itzhak Halevi, Mier
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49.33%
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9724
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Hochman, Raphael
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39.14%
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7714
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Kadosh, Gabriel
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9.73%
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1917
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Siboni, Reuven Robert
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1.81%
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356
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Results for City Council will take several days to collate, according to the Ministry of Interior. Whereas the person with the most votes becomes mayor, for City Council the number of seats is divided proportionately according to the votes each party received, so even just a few soldiers' votes or other yet-outstanding votes might put a given party over the line for an additional seat, or make the difference between it receiving one at all if it hadn't met the minimum votes required. (For example, based on preliminary results, some half of the parties did not break through the ‘barrier percentage'). Thus Eilat Today will not publish the interim results, but will wait for the final data.
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The 19,711 votes that were valid comprise 42 % of the registered voters in Eilat, the same turnout recorded for the previous elections in 2003. While there are residents of Eilat who did not change their address in the Ministry of Interior to reflect that fact and hence could not vote, or other people who are registered as Eilat residents but have moved or are out of town, even their votes would unlikely make even one percentage point difference Such a low turnout is discouraging to those who believe that democracy and the right to have a personal say in the choice of one's leadership is a privilege that should be treasured and not taken for granted, as there are many places in the world that deny people that freedom.
Interestingly, the final percentages of votes each mayoral candidate almost exactly matched the partial official results from when only 35 out of the 79 voting polls' results had yet come in. Since where people vote is based on their address, and the order in which results come in is random, based on how quickly and accurately each poll's votes are counted and submitted, it appears that there was no strong demographic trend that would make a difference due to which polls had not yet been counted. This is unlike some previous elections, where the results of given areas were expected to change the trend that existed meanwhile, thus giving hope or disappointment (depending on who you backed) right up to the last minute.
Many people who had strongly supported a candidate flocked to their choice's headquarters after the polls closed at 10 PM, to avidly follow the count as each poll's results were announced. At 1:45 AM or so, however, the Ministry of Interior ordered a halt to giving real time information to the press and the gatherings began breaking up, as only when all the votes had been counted would any results be given and this could take hours. Election day was not an official day off from work, and the day after it (today) most certainly not, so most people toddled off home to at least try and get some sleep.
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