The path to challenging election results starts with an attack on Sohlberg

The parties of the current coalition have recently been attacking the decisions of the Central Elections Committee on several levels. These include appointments to the committee staff, decisions regarding artificial intelligence videos produced by the Likud and Religious Zionism parties, and the ban on Otzma Yehudit using police activity as a basis for party election propaganda. These attacks are taking place on several platforms by the parties and their prominent members against the Central Elections Committee.

The series of public criticisms against the committee creates the impression that both the events that triggered the committee's decisions and the reactions to them are not coincidental.

In other words, the recent attacks by right-wing parties on Judge Noam Sohlberg, who serves as chairman of the Central Elections Committee, are not a localized event of judicial criticism, but appear to be a worrying layer in a broader strategy aimed at undermining the legitimacy of future election results. When senior political echelons attack the integrity of the committee entrusted with the purity of the elections, they are sowing the seeds of public distrust in the democratic foundation of the State of Israel.

The cynicism of these attacks is particularly striking in light of Judge Sohlberg's clear right-wing record. From a comprehensive data analysis I conducted on the rulings of Supreme Court judges, in which I ranked their implied political position based on their legal decisions, I showed that the Deputy President of the Supreme Court demonstrates positions that are in line with the positions of the more right-wing parts of the Likud party.

The fact that a judge identified with a right-wing worldview, and who fulfills it in practice by living in a settlement beyond the Green Line, becomes a target for sharp attacks by the leadership of the most right-wing coalition, proves that the criticism is not substantive but political-tactical. The right-wing political position of the honorable Judge Sohlberg does not grant him immunity from those who, apparently, seek to bend the rules of the game for their own personal benefit.

It is impossible to ignore the worrying similarity between the discourse developing in Israel ahead of the elections in October 2026 and the events that led to January 6 in the United States. There, systematic questioning of the institutions responsible for elections led to a violent outbreak that threatened the peace of democracy. In Israel, the attempts by coalition leaders to portray the election committee's decisions as "puzzling" or as political interference are preparing the ground for the day when they will refuse to accept the voter's verdict if it does not suit their ambitions. The public interest requires an immediate stop to this snowball effect.

Defending Judge Sohlberg is not defending a private individual, but the institution of the Chairman of the Central Elections Committee and the ability of the Israeli public to believe in its own vote. All party leaders, from right and left, must issue a joint and unqualified statement: a commitment to accept the election results as they will be approved by the committee, regardless of the identity of the election winners.

Democracy is measured not only on election day, but in the willingness of the loser to accept the majority's decision with respect for state institutions. If we continue to allow Judge Sohlberg, and with him the Central Elections Committee, to be pushed into a political-partisan corner, while describing the committee as "trying to topple the right-wing government" instead of as a state institution acting in the service of the state, we may find that we have lost not only public trust in one judge, but trust in our ability to maintain a democratic and functioning society here.

The author is a lecturer in the Department of Government, Communications and Diplomacy at the Interdisciplinary Academic Center, Jerusalem.