Israel, Politics

September Madness results!

(Crossposted to Mah Rabu.)

After a little bit of last-minute shifting, the results of the Knesset election are final, and that means it’s time to announce the results of September Madness!  Thanks to everyone who played!

Three parties (Zehut, Noam, and Kol Yisrael Achim) dropped out before Election Day, which means that there were only (“only”) 29 parties contesting the election.  Here are the election results:

  1. Blue & White 33
  2. Likud 32
  3. Joint List 13
  4. Shas 9
  5. Yisrael Beiteinu 8
  6. United Torah Judaism 7
  7. Yaminah 7
  8. Labor/Gesher 6
  9. Democratic Camp 5
  10. Otzmah Yehudit
  11. Tzomet
  12. HaAchdut HaAmamit
  13. Adom Lavan
  14. Tzedek
  15. HaYamin HaHiloni
  16. Kavod V’Shivyon
  17. Zechuyoteinu B’Koleinu
  18. Pirates
  19. Otzmah Kalkalit
  20. Mitkademet
  21. KaMaH
  22. Seder Hadash
  23. Democratura
  24. Tzafon
  25. Christian Liberal Movement
  26. Green Economy, One State (Da’am)
  27. Kevod HaAdam
  28. Bible Bloc Party
  29. Manhigut Hevratit

And now we turn to the September Madness prediction contest.  Overall, the scores were a lot higher than last time.  This is probably because this was a do-over election, and the broad strokes of the results were essentially the same as 5 months ago.  (No one did this, but if someone had predicted that all the parties would keep exactly the same number of seats as last time, taking into account the various mergers since then, they would have correctly predicted 111 out of 120 Knesset seats.  This would have been better than anyone did in April Madness.)

Let’s start with the bonus tiebreaker questions.  The first question, “Of the parties that do NOT win seats in the Knesset, which will come closest?”, proved to be an easy one this time.  The vast majority of entrants picked Otzmah Yehudit, and they were correct.  It wasn’t even close (in either direction) – Otzmah got a little more than half the votes they would have needed to cross the threshold, yet still had over 5 times as many votes as the party directly behind them (Tzomet).  But the second question, “Which party will get the FEWEST votes?”, had responses all over the map.  The “winner,” Manhigut Hevratit, won only 434 votes, and repeated its “success” from 2013 and 2015, when it placed last under the name Moreshet Avot (and the April 2019 result, when the party placed 36th out of 40, proved to be a fluke).  Honorable mention to Eliana Fishman in Washington DC (as well as to our runner-up, see below) for correctly picking this one.

On to the overall Knesset prediction results!  Looking at the scores alone, we had a four-way tie for second place, with Israel Yawns, Samantha & Gabby in Jerusalem, Ike Brooks Fishman in Washington DC, and (our April Madness 2019 champion) Aaron Weinberg in Washington DC, all scoring 113 out of 120.  To resolve this, we go to the tiebreaker questions, and Aaron Weinberg nailed both of them, so he is our runner-up!  Congratulations!

And in first place, Liam Getreu in Sydney, Australia, was the only one to predict 114 out of 120 Knesset seats, so he is our September Madness 2019 champion!!!  Congratulations!!!!  Continuing a trend from last time, he was also the first to complete his entry.  So this suggests that waiting longer to have the “benefit” of polling data closer to the election may not actually be a benefit.

We asked our champion for a statement, and he said:

Let’s just hope you don’t have to run another competition in a few months’ time!

So yeah.  Now that the coalition negotiations are well underway, and no one has an obvious path to a 61-seat coalition, it is certainly possible that we’ll be right back here in a few months.  Or maybe someone will form a government, and we’ll see you again on Tuesday, October 31, 2023, or any other time between now and then.  Thanks again to everyone for playing!

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