NEW YORK (Press Release) — An all-time record 230,257 votes were recorded in the election for United States delegates to the 39th World Zionist Congress, according to preliminary results released by the American Zionist Movement (AZM), the umbrella Zionist Federation in the U.S. which administers the voting.
The preliminary results released Thursday confirm that participation in the 2025 election, which took place from March 10-May 4, 2025, marked an over 86% increase from the 123,575 votes in the most recent U.S. election in 2020. In this year’s election, 224,237 valid votes were cast online, and 6,020 valid votes were mailed in via paper ballots. AZM released the initial results following the completion of tabulation of all paper ballots this week and decisions of the Area Election Committee (AEC), which oversees the election process, at its meeting today.
The 152 delegates elected from the U.S. — amounting to approximately one-third of the 525 Congress delegates — will join others from around the world to make key decisions regarding the allocation of over $1 billion annually in support of Israel and world Jewry.
“American Jews have spoken — through their record-breaking turnout in the 2025 World Zionist Congress election, they have powerfully demonstrated that Zionism in the United States is not only alive and well but stronger than ever,” said Herbert Block, Executive Director of AZM. “Thanks to this historic participation in the election, U.S. Jewry is poised to make an indelible mark when the World Zionist Congress gathers in October.”
A record 22 slates representing diverse political beliefs, religious denominations, and cultural traditions competed in the election, which is held once every five years. This represented a 57% surge from the 14 American slates that won seats in the Congress in 2020. The preliminary tally of votes by slate in the 2025 U.S. World Zionist Congress election is as follows:
|
SLATE |
PRELIMINARY VOTES |
|
VOTE REFORM |
47,887 |
|
Am Yisrael Chai: Investing in Jewish leadership, fulfilling our destiny |
31,765 |
|
Eretz HaKodesh: Protecting the Kedusha and Mesorah of Eretz Yisrael |
29,159 |
|
MERCAZ USA: The Voice of Conservative/Masorti Judaism |
27,893 |
|
ORTHODOX ISRAEL COALITION (OIC) – MIZRACHI: On the Frontlines for Israel’s Future |
26,975 |
|
HATIKVAH: The Progressive Slate – Vote for Change & Hope, Vote for a Better Future in Israel |
11,537 |
|
ZOA Coalition: The 30+ Leading Orgs Defending Jews-Students-Israel-Judea-Samaria |
8,511 |
|
Aish Ha’am |
6,649 |
|
VISION |
6,201 |
|
Israeli American Council (IAC): A Coast to Coast Community with Israel at Heart and Spirit |
5,344 |
|
Kol Israel – Standing Together to Strengthen Israel and the Jewish People |
5,314 |
|
AID Coalition (America-Israel Democracy): The Israeli-American Voice to Rebuild Israel |
4,880 |
|
Beyachad – TOGETHER FOR ISRAEL |
3,238 |
|
SHAS |
2,658 |
|
Israel365 Action – Vote AGAINST the two state “solution” and FOR Judea and Samaria! |
2,339 |
|
Dorshei Torah V’Tzion: Torah and Israel for the Future of All Jews |
1,946 |
|
The Jewish Future ─ Centrist Liberal Zionism |
1,794 |
|
Achdut Israel |
1,592 |
|
American Forum for Israel |
1,539 |
|
ANU: A New Union – A NextGen Big Tent for the Jewish American Consensus |
1,509 |
|
Herut North America – The Jabotinsky Movement |
1,109 |
|
Americans 4 Israel: Strength Through Unity |
385 |
To reach a preliminary tally of votes, the standard post-election procedures were followed, including:
- Processing and counting over 10,000 paper ballots received via postal mail following the closure of online voting on May 4th
- Verifying voter eligibility across all submitted ballots
- Reconciling any discrepancies in the voter data
As was the case in prior World Zionist Congress elections, this preliminary tally process took several weeks to complete.
Separately, the AEC conducted a thorough investigation of some serious voting irregularities identified during this year’s election, which affected a small subset of the overall votes cast. While irregularities arise in many elections, the online nature of this election may have invited one or more bad actors to attempt to take advantage of modern technology to sway the outcome. Immediately upon the discovery by the AZM staff of unusual patterns of potentially fraudulent voting, the AEC, through its chairs, engaged outside consultants to investigate the potentially fraudulent activity as well as to search for any additional patterns of irregular voting or registration.
Five slates would have benefited from an orchestrated scheme of problematic online registrations and votes involving prepaid credit cards and/or anonymized email addresses. A sixth slate received votes resulting from invalid paper registrations and ballots cast on its behalf.
As a result of the investigation thus far, 18,948 invalid votes were canceled, from these two categories, and have not been included in the official total of 230,257 votes.
The AEC and its investigators are continuing to examine the data and to consider whether any penalties should be imposed on slates connected with the fraudulent voting schemes. After concluding that review, and other standard reconciliations of voter data, the AZM will certify and release the number of mandates (delegate seats) earned by each slate, calculated in accordance with the formula prescribed by the election rules of the U.S. AEC and the WZO. There remain pending claims before the AZM Tribunal and the Zionist Supreme Court in Israel which could affect the final delegate allocation.
The First Zionist Congress, the genesis of the modern Zionist movement, was convened by Theodor Herzl in 1897. It was at this meeting that leaders from throughout the Jewish world jointly proclaimed that the Jewish people should have a state of their own. The 39th World Zionist Congress will convene in Jerusalem from October 28 to 30, 2025.
With the U.S. Jewish community turning out a record number of voters in this year’s election, the overall American Jewish delegation to the Zionist Congress is positioned to have a greater backing and prominence than ever in advancing a multitude of high-priority Jewish and Zionist causes.
Preceding provided by American Zionist Movement