Likud tells media it installed cameras outside Arab polling stations
A Druze voter after casting her vote in parliamentary elections on September 17, 2019
The Times of Israel reports:
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party installed dozens of cameras outside polling stations in Arab cities ahead of Tuesday’s elections, and then leaked that fact to the media, apparently as part of a bid to discourage members of the minority group from voting.
Footage published by Channel 13 purported to show Likud members installing “dozens of facial recognition cameras outside Arab polling stations” overnight Monday. The short clip tweeted by the TV news channel showed two men installing a camera outside a polling station in a village near Nazareth.
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Journalists and others on Twitter were quick to question the report, saying the cameras seen in the video were not capable of identifying faces, nor would the Likud have access to a large enough database of photos to effectively identify individual people. Some speculated that Likud leaked the footage to Channel 13 as part of a campaign strategy to depress Arab turnout by intimidating members of the minority, who are wary of government surveillance.