The US-based elections for the World Zionist Congress (WZC) 2025 have been engulfed in scandal following allegations of vote-rigging.
Weeks after approximately 2,000 votes were tossed out due to apparent irregularities in the running for the so-called “parliament of the Jewish people”, which acts as the supreme body of the World Zionist Organisation and the Jewish Agency, more incidents of improprieties have been discovered.
The US Area Election Committee, which oversees the American portion of the WZC election, identified thousands of additional suspicious votes, according to reports. The committee has not publicly identified the slate or slates that benefited from those votes, nor the process used to cast them.
However, earlier this month, the committee identified approximately 1,900 suspicious votes tied to two unnamed slates, reportedly emanating from yeshivot, which were linked to randomly generated email addresses, prepaid credit cards or suspicious addresses.
The committee rejected all of those votes, though it continues to investigate and has not disqualified any slates as a result. Its chairs stated that, if appropriate, they would “refer the matter and any perpetrators to relevant law-enforcement authorities”.
Separately, Israeli media reported that high-ranking officials in the Conservative Judaism movement sought to recruit religious journalists to urge members of the Charedi community not to participate in the vote and funded posters to that effect in religious neighbourhoods. Leaked WhatsApp conversations and internal correspondence allegedly expose a campaign by the Merkaz Olami organisation to finance posters in Charedi areas.
The group is also accused of offering payments to secure rabbinic endorsements of its campaign, apparently aimed at the voting base of the Eretz Hakodesh slate, both in the United States and in Israel.
Merkaz Olami declined to comment on the report.
An audit is now likely to take place and delay the certification of the election results due to the percentage of ballots now either discarded or in dispute.
However, the American Zionist Movement (AZM), which administers the election, said the “irregular votes that we have identified represent only a small fraction of the total votes cast.”
The committee “is continuing its investigation into voting irregularities,” the AZM stated. The election committee’s “own internal monitoring that initially detected these issues, and through our ongoing investigation, additional irregular votes have been identified and isolated”.
“We remain absolutely committed to upholding the integrity of the election and ensuring that no improper votes will be counted in the final results,” the AZM added, noting that a record turnout is expected for the election.
As of April 15, nearly 124,000 votes had been cast with three weeks to go, already surpassing the 2020 vote total.
The 22 slates competing in the election were notified of the newest irregularities late last week, according to reports.
“If there is indeed proof of voter fraud by any of the parties, not only must those votes be disqualified, but those parties must be sanctioned and penalised,” declared David Yaari, chair of the Kol Israel slate.
“Without penalty, it’s an incentive to continue fraud,” he said.
The election has major ramifications for the allocation of more than $1 billion of funding for Israel and world Jewry, and shaping Zionist institutions for the next few years.
The campaign for the Jewish people’s “parliament” is the first for the congress since the end of the COVID pandemic; the rise of internal Israeli political strife, including protests against judicial reform; and the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Some reportedly see it as a referendum on the Israeli government and Jewish organisational leadership.
The 22 US organisations or groups, including nine new entities, running slates in this year’s election are a record number.
Each slate will be assigned a proportion of congressional seats based on the percentage of the vote it earns. Unlike in Knesset elections, no minimum percentage threshold is required for a slate to secure a seat in the WZC.
