Cabinet ministers on Sunday unanimously approved the camera law. The law is now expected to pass through the legislative process in the Knesset.
At the opening of the cabinet meeting, Netanyahu said, "Today we are submitting for Cabinet approval the law on cameras in polling places. The integrity of elections is among the foundations of democracy. The best way to prevent fraud in the elections is to station cameras in every polling place and allow poll watchers from the rival parties to supervise each other. Reciprocal oversight of all the parties is the essence of transparency in a democracy and one of the most important foundations in upholding the rule of law. Therefore, cameras in polling places in the hands of poll watchers are a necessary means to assist in maintaining the integrity of the elections."
"I would like to emphasize here: The draft legislation determines that the cameras will document what goes on in the polling place hall and not voting behind the screen. The secrecy of the vote will be strictly maintained. In 2013, Judge Elyakim Rubinstein, who then chaired the Central Elections Committee, said: ‘It is necessary to think about cameras' – and regarding the recent elections, Judge Melcer, who then chaired the Central Elections Committee, said that the phenomenon of fraud is a real problem. Therefore, problems must be resolved, and elections problems must be resolved before the elections. When should this be resolved? After the elections?
"No special preparations, training or equipment is necessary. Any poll watcher can film with his cellphone. This is what happens in our public space: Everyone photographs, everything is an Instagram story, every grocery has cameras, then the hall at the polling place cannot be photographed? Cameras in polling places for the integrity of the elections – it is simple, it is fair, it is transparent and it is just.
"One cannot explain why photography is restricted precisely in the only public place where transparency is required more than any other. We will submit the issue for legislation in order to ensure that the coming elections will be clean, supervised and exact, just as the citizens of Israel expect from us.”