MK Yulia Shamalov-Berkovich is going to court to demand compensation for a faulty Likud primaries vote that she says robbed her of a realistic spot on the party's Knesset list.
Shamalov-Berkovich's supporters informed her that her name does not appear on the list of candidates in the voting screens, and appears in an unexpected place in others, making it hard to find. A photograph taken by a supporter shows that her number, 158, appeared on the voting screen between numbers 151 and 152, instead of after 157.
MK Shamalov-Berkovich entered the Knesset on the Kadima ticket but joined Likud in October. She gained fame in 2010 after she voiced support for traditional family values, castigating what she called "the feminist jihad." Some of her supporters suspected that the faults in the ballot were part of the revenge of the establishment that she challenged.
A programmer told Arutz Sheva that, at least in those cases in which her name appeared in the wrong place, the problem is probably not the result of malice. He explained that when Shamalov-Berkovich's name was first fed into the system, it was given the number 157. Later on, her name was shortened to "Yulia S. Berkovich" so it could fit into the space allotted to names. The program then rearranged the names according to alphabetical order, and her name fell back six places.
The MK's lawyer, Attorney Yosef Maooda, said that when MK Shamalov-Berkovich and her aides complained about the malfunction on the day of the primaries, they were told that the problem was a "minor" one and would be fixed "soon."
After the primaries, Likud's internal election committee rejected her appeal for a renewed vote. Attorney Maooda said that the committee is "politicized" and that MK Shamalov-Berkovich will appeal to the District Court and also sue for damages.
Likud's secretariat admits that MK Shamalov-Berkovich's name did not appear properly.