JERUSALEM, April 11 (Xinhua) -- The vote counting in Israel's closely-fought elections was completed on Thursday, but the Central Election Committee said it had postponed publishing the results to allow more checking.
The election committee completed counting all the voting tickets, after an overnight tallying of the last votes of some 270,000 soldiers, diplomats, prisoners, and other people who vote in unusual circumstances.
The committee said it will release the results only after more checking.
"A process of validation of the data that were entered into the computer system began ahead of the publication of the results," a spokesman of the election committee said in a statement.
"In order to preserve the purity of the elections, the election committee announced that the examination and control processes continue," the statement read.
Unofficial results suggested that the New Right, a pro-settler party, and Zehut, a libertarian list, have not passed the electoral threshold needed to get into the parliament, according to local media.
Education Minister Naftali Bennett and Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, leaders of the New Right, said they intended to file an appeal against the result and demand a recount of all votes.
On Wednesday night, leaders of the centrist Blue and White party, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's main challengers in the elections, admitted defeat, thus paving the way for Netanyahu's record-breaking fifth term in office.
A count of some 99 percent of the votes on Wednesday indicated that the Likud and Blue and White won some 35 seats each. However, the right-wing bloc in the parliament secured a majority big enough to make it highly likely for Netanyahu to form the next coalition government.
