The Israeli Electoral College

As I noted earlier, Benjamin Netanyahu is headed back to being Prime Minister. There’s still some question about how many seats he’ll have. But he’ll be PM either way. Title notwithstanding, Israel does not have an electoral college. But I use that headline because this article in the Haaretz notes something with a comparable effect. The pro- and anti-Netanyahu camps both got roughly the same number of votes, both just over 49%. But Netanyahu’s bloc will likely get as many as 65 out of 120 seats — a comfortable majority by recent standards.

So how did this happen?