And it is a significant increase on the record low this century – 9.9 per cent ahead of Ehud Olmert’s victory in 2006.
The committee later confirmed that, by noon, the figure had increased to 30 per cent, with more than two million votes cast
While the Central Elections Committee did not provide the demographic breakdown behind the increase in turnout, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has offered a theory as to the cause.
Encouraging his base to get to the polls, the leader of the far-right Religious Zionism party claimed that surge stemmed from Arab-Israeli neighbourhoods and “left-wing stronghold”.
“Based on the published figures, there is absolutely no chance that parties currently below the electoral threshold will cross it,” he claimed, despite the turnout data not offering any information on which parties people are voting for.
“Don’t throw your vote in the trash,” he added, encouraging conservative voters to back his faction rather than splitting the right-wing vote.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich casts his ballot at a polling station in Kedumim, Israel, on October 27, 2026 (Flash90)Flash90
Elsewhere, the IDF has confirmed that turnout among soldiers had reached 30 per cent by 10am, up five per cent from 2022.
Troops have been able to vote for the past week, including those stationed in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon through mobile polling stations.
And diplomatic staff on foreign postings also voted early, with their ballot papers sealed and transported back to Israel for counting today.
Meanwhile, around 70,000 Israeli nationals have flown home from abroad to vote, as the country is one of a handful of democracies that do not allow absentee voting, while half a million young people are eligible to cast a ballot for the first time.
Visiting the CEC’s headquarters earlier, President Isaac Herzog said: “It is a real holiday of democracy, and no one can be allowed to ruin it – quite the opposite, this is our opportunity, all of us, to influence our fate, the fate of our children, and the fate of our grandchildren.
“What’s more, it is something that is deeply embedded inside of our spirit, as a very democratic nation.
“We must remember and not forget, even though we are putting different slips in the ballot, and we are expressing different opinions, in the end we have a common fate.
“A common fate in this land, a common fate in our beloved country, and this election process is another way to express our love for our country.”
