High Court dismisses petition by expatriates seeking to vote in upcoming election

Israel’s High Court on Wednesday dismissed a petition by Israeli expatriates seeking to vote in the October 27 election after discovering that they had been excluded from the voter rolls under a little-known Interior Ministry classification that records certain citizens as nonresidents. 

The petition was filed by some 100 expatriate Israelis challenging their exclusion from the voter rolls under an Interior Ministry classification known as “Code 51,” which records them as having ceased to be Israeli residents.

The petitioners said they had never asked to give up their status as Israeli residents and questioned the legal authority, criteria, and process by which the classification was imposed. Some only discovered the designation when they checked their eligibility ahead of the election.

The court did not resolve that factual dispute, instead dismissing the petition on procedural grounds. Justice Yechiel Kasher said the case was filed too late, a week before the voter registry was due to be finalized, and that the petitioners had not first used the statutory appeals process available to challenge their registration status. The court also said the petition lacked a detailed factual record showing how each of the petitioners came to receive Code 51.

The case arose as tens of thousands of Israeli citizens living abroad are making plans to return to Israel to cast ballots in the country’s first national election since the October 7 Hamas attack. More than 30,000 expatriates had registered with Fly&Vote, an initiative helping Israelis arrange election travel, which has already secured seven dedicated flights to Israel. 

The Interior Ministry told the court that Code 51 is given to citizens who informed a population registry official that they were leaving Israel and asked not to remain registered as residents. The petitioners disputed that account, saying they had never asked for their registration as Israeli residents to be canceled.

Israeli informed of change to residency status while registering newborn son

Ilana Mittman, a retired social scientist living in Baltimore and a petitioner in the case, discovered this summer that her residency status had been changed under Code 51 on March 7, 1986, the same date she visited the Israeli Consulate in San Francisco to register her newborn son. 

Mittman told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that consular staff took away her Israeli ID card during the 1986 appointment without explanation. “I remember how bad of a feeling it was to give that document away,” she said. “I felt I gave a part of myself away when that happened. But I didn’t know that my biggest right as a citizen – the right to vote – was just robbed from me.”

The petition also challenged the law tying voting eligibility to residency, arguing that it conflicts with Israel’s Basic Law governing the Knesset, which guarantees every Israeli citizen aged 18 or older the right to vote unless a court has deprived them of that right. The court did not decide that question, and Kasher said the petitioners could raise it again after the election.