Over 10,000 polling stations around Israel opened at 7 AM Tuesday morning, kicking off the long anticipated process of choosing who will be in the 20th Knesset. A large turnout was expected as this race is closer than any has been in many years and a large amount of money, much of it from outside the country, has been spent on efforts to motivate people to vote. Although initial results are expected by late Tuesday evening, official results will not be published until the 25th of March. However, President Reuven Rivlin is expected to begin the process of urging the various parties to present their plans to form a new coalition government as soon as possible. Meanwhile, leaders of the various factions made last minute appeals to their core constituencies on Monday evening.

Incumbent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declaring during a speech in eastern Jerusalem that if he is re-elected there will not be a Palestinian State and Zionist Union No. 2 Tzipi Livni offering to forgo her chance to be rotated into the Prime Minister’s slot if it will prevent faction chief Isaac Herzog from forming a coalition to replace Netanyahu.

“Livni courageously and generously said that if the rotation would in any way hinder the formation of a government, she would not stand in the way,” Herzog told Channel 2 Monday. “She told me she would give me the full flexibility I need to form the next government.”

“Buji and Tzipi are panicking because of the tightening gap between Likud and Labor,” Netanyahu told Channel 2 Monday, referring to Herzog and Livni. “They can’t stand up to pressure. They couldn’t handle the pressure of the polls so how can they handle international pressure? This can decide the election. The public is not stupid.”

Claims, counter-claims and deeply acrimonious statements were also made by various other faction leaders as the last minutes of what many analysts called the dirtiest and nastiest political campaign in Israeli history ticked away.

However, voters did not appear to be turned off by all the negativity, with polling places crowded throughout the morning.