The Times of Israel reports: The Central Elections Committee began counting the final votes early Thursday morning, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his main challenger, Benny Gantz, still caught in an apparent deadlock.
At 1 a.m officials began tallying the so-called double envelope votes cast by diplomats, security forces, handicapped citizens, hospital patients and staff, and prisoners. Those votes make up some five percent of the overall vote. The vast majority of them are the votes of soldiers, which traditionally skew to the right (and usually don’t go to ultra-Orthodox or Arab parties) and could affect the final distribution of seats.
According to results released at 5:17 a.m. Blue and White was still slightly ahead, having garnered 1,035,635 votes compared to 1,010,246 for Likud.
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