By Joanna Chen
Jerusalem -- Israelis face two big elections. At home there's the contest between Tzipi Livni's Kadima party and Benjamin Netanyahu's hawkish Likud party in February. And many voters in Israel are also getting ready to mark their ballots in the U.S. presidential race. About 42,000 Americans residing in Israel—half from swing states such as Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania—are registered to vote in the contest. Their ballots could tip the balance if the election tighten up.
In 2004, when more than 30,000 Americans voted, Israel accounted for the third highest number of absentee ballots among foreign countries, after only Canada and Britain. So far more than seven thousand registration forms have been mailed on behalf of voters to forty-six different counties around the U.S., according to Vote from Israel (VFI), a nonpartisan organization based in Jerusalem. With the help of a handful of volunteers, VFI has set up fifty drop boxes around the country and is sponsoring events for registering and voting. "People here feel involved," says director Shimon Greenspan, who founded the group along with his wife, Dena, two months ago. "They feel this decision will affect their lives, especially in Israel but also for their families back home in the U.S." Most voters are Jewish and many hold dual Israeli-American citizenship, but there have also been a sprinkling of calls from Palestinians with American citizenship living in the West Bank.
Greenspan cites two main reasons for the increased interest in voting from Israel this year: the precarious global economy and fears of a nuclear threat from Iran. But individuals vary widely in their reasoning. "I've never voted before but this time I feel I need to do something," says IT analyst Moshe Mizrachi, 32, who has lived in Israel for ten years and is registered in Ohio. "Israel is a vassal state and very much connected to the policies enacted by the American government, so this really matters." Mizrachi, who supports Republican John McCain, voted earlier this week at a gathering in a Tel Aviv bar hosted by VFI, where a packed crowd of mostly young, secular voters enjoyed half-price beer and big screen football. Noah Efron, a lecturer at Bar Ilan University, intends to vote for Democratic candidate Barack Obama. "I don't think Israel stands to gain anything but I want to be able to say to myself and my children that I voted for this historic change in American politics," he says.
Voters who registered through VFI have also been encouraged to participate in the first absentee exit poll of the U.S. elections, slated for publication later this week by Keevoon Research Strategy and Communications. "The results are going to be explosive because these are real people, real voters [and] real U.S. citizens", explained Keevoon's CEO Mitchell Barak. Since it's believed that many of the voters are casting ballots for the first time, the results could be surprising and may influence the way American Jews, at least, will vote on November 4.