18 percent of eligible Americans in Israel voted in midterms

Expatriate Americans in Israel voting in the midterm U.S. congressional elections numbered 30,000, or 18 percent of those eligible to vote, according to a group that encourages such voting.

Matt Solomon, the director of iVoteIsrael, said Israel leads other countries by far in turnout of U.S. citizens living there.

In previous non-presidential elections, turnout among American expatriates around the world was 1 percent, Solomon said in a release Thursday, two days after the election, and it is 5 percent in presidential election years.

In 2012, a presidential year, there were 80,000 Americans in Israel who voted, or 50 percent of those eligible, he said, constituting 25 percent of all American expatriates who voted that year.

“This connection between countries demonstrates the breadth of the unique relationship between the two countries,” he said.

U.S. voters in Israel hailed from 36 states.