The EUEOM strongly recommends that the electoral process must enjoy the basic freedoms of movement and assembly. Even in the worst case scenario whereby
Israeli forces are still imposing strict measures, given sufficient time it should still be possible to expand upon the procedures employed for the 9 January election in
order to put in place adequate arrangements for the proposed July elections, where the number of candidates will be significantly larger.

Internal guidelines for public bodies and public figures should be developed, explaining clearly what is permissible and what is not.

The CEC and DECs are urged to act, and be seen to act, upon complaints.

The CEC should establish and publish clear internal procedures for decisionmaking, to preclude ad hoc decisions.

There should be a requirement on behalf of the CEC for the publication and notification to relevant stakeholders of all formal CEC and DEC decisions.

The CEC must ensure the publication of decisions on complaints and appeals, including information on and reasons for the refusal to consider any complaint.

Develop external guidelines, with a more detailed explanation in the election law of how media should cover the election campaign in order to provide balanced
coverage for the public. This can help define:
- Right to reasonable access and fair treatment for all election contestants, particularly with regards to the official media.
- Duty to provide fair and professional editorial coverage (news, debates, etc.) on behalf of all electronic and official media.
- Any potential conflict of interest (i.e. candidates owning media outlets,
journalists running as candidates, advantage of the incumbent government.
etc.).

The legal framework for media should include provisions regulating the purchase of airtime both in terms of amount of paid advertisement candidates are entitled to
buy during the campaign period and in terms of fees that media can impose on candidates, including the provision that the same rates should apply for all
candidates and the rates should be the lowest for the time band requested.

There also needs to be a concurrent will to enforce such regulations, because if successful, such mechanisms can have a positive effect on the process, including
increasing the accountability of political parties, ensuring more effective political competition, preserving the integrity of the electoral process by increasing
transparency, enhancing accountability, eliminating corruption and strengthening the rule of law.

The legal provisions on procedures for assisted voters should be amended to place a limit of just one voter to be assisted by any other person. This will help address
the problem of individuals assisting multiple persons in a polling station.

The EUEOM strongly recommends that the CEC fully utilises the resources it has to ensure for future elections a prompt publication of all details relating to results
and voting turnout. It has been shown in elections elsewhere, that such a willingness and capacity to rapidly provide such information greatly adds to the
transparency and confidence in an election.

Further, as civil society organisations and party representatives are permitted to collect copies of polling station results and as such results are also to be posted at
the polling station site for a period of days after the election, it is somewhat logical that this exercise is only valuable if such results can be compared to the ones
officially published as having been tabulated at a later stage.

Several developments in the jurisprudence of the Supreme Court concerning electionrelated matters should be included in the Constitution and/or the Parliamentary
Elections Act (PEA), namely:
o The right of voters to freely elect their representatives should be included in the Constitution.
o The SC jurisprudence on art.48A of the PEA, increasing the number of cases when the Commissioner of Elections should annul an election and order a repoll,
should be included in the law.

In order to increase the transparency and accountability of the role of the Police in the electoral process, the Police Election Secretariat should provide a detailed analytical
report on the complaints received and on their handling after the end of the election period.

Following the appointment of an independent Election Commission, its means of enforcement should cover all the electronic media, state media as well as private
electronic media, and should be able to impose a wider range of sanctions.

Paid advertising by political parties should be under the control of an independent institution. The content of such advertisement must not include inflammatory language.
Limits to advertisement might be imposed on the quantity of paid advertising that parties are entitled to purchase, as well as on the amount of airtime the media are allowed to broadcast daily.

In the long term, the use of a national identity card or a similar document to check voters’ identities on the voters’ list should be made compulsory.

Polling Staff training should focus on the following critical technical aspects:
o The importance of checking the ink on voters’ fingers prior to voting;
o The correct application of the ink;
o The importance of the layout of polling stations for a full protection of the secrecy of the vote.

A code of conduct as outlined in previous EU EOM reports should be agreed among political parties and implemented. The purpose should be to prevent violence.

All media should draft and implement internal guidelines and codes of conduct for election coverage, particularly the state media

The criteria for the appointment of state media management should be based on professional considerations rather than political reasons. The choice of state media
management should be the result of an agreement between the government and the opposition.

Domestic observers should be allowed to enter counting centres to observe the counting of votes.

Political parties should consider introducing an internal quota system guaranteeing larger women’s participation as candidates in the electoral process.

The composition of the election commission could be reviewed. The legal provision for inclusion of representatives of the parties in Parliament has resulted in an overly politicized process for tasks which, though having political repercussions, are technical in nature. While the inclusion of political party representatives is useful in increasing transparency, consideration should be given to complementing party representatives, e.g. with more representatives from civil society selected according to clear criteria and procedures.

Decision making could also be modified, for example by abandoning the current majority system for some other formula.