How do votes become a Knesset?
At the Knesset 25 election (2022) a list needed 3.25% of the valid votes, 154,855 votes, to get in; a seat cost 35,474 votes, and 30 lists were left out.
Four rules: The electoral threshold · How votes become seats · Surplus-vote agreements · Ballot letters
Every rule is explained with this site's own data as the example, and every number is linked to the law or document that set it.
The electoral threshold
How many votes a list needs to enter the Knesset, how the bar has changed three times since 2003, and what it has actually cost — with a simulator that moves one list above and below the bar and shows what happens to the whole Knesset.
How votes become seats
The Bader-Ofer method, on a real election — the quota, the first division, and who gets the leftover seats.
Surplus-vote agreements
Two lists that pool their leftover votes, and what that is actually worth.
Ballot letters
Why the same letter stands for entirely different lists in different elections — with the letter that has passed through nine lists.
Sources: legislation, the official gazette (Reshumot), and the Central Elections Committee's publications.
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