Voting box (illustrative)
Voting box (illustrative)Yehonatan Welcer, TPS

Avraham Leihman and Moshe Zelkind have been indicted for working together to impersonate others during the voting process, Israel Hayom reported.

According to the indictment, the two made contact ahead of the April 2019 elections for Israel's 21st Knesset, with the purpose of voting fraudulently.

Zelkind turned to Leihman, offering him to vote instead of his father, who was abroad at the time.

Leihman accepted the offer, and the two met at a polling station in Modi'in Illit, where Zelkind gave Leihman his father's Israeli ID card. Leihman identified himself using the ID card, received a voter's envelope, and voted, while Zelkind waited outside the room for him.

Since Leihman has no prior criminal record, the government department in charge of community service suggested the court sentence both of them to community service. In addition, the attorney noted that both men are students leading relatively normal lives, suggesting that the process conclude without convicting them.

However, attorney Yarden Naor, representing Israel Police's department for lawsuits, pointed out a previous case in which those who carried out illegal elections activities were sentenced to jail time, and at the very least, in special cases, to community service.

Judge Oded Morano of Petah Tikva's Magistrates Court accepted Naor's statement and did not cancel the convictions. However, he did give them two months of community service each, due to the severity of the crime. In his ruling, he wrote that "in light of the fact that they admitted, saving us precious judicial time, and have no criminal records, they should be placed on the lower end of the punishment, which I have sentenced them to."