In Taiwan, there is a law that bans poll results being made public within 10 days of a presidential election. So before the window closed, each party released their internal polling results and the media released more than a dozen polls. In the end, the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) candidate, Vice President William Lai (賴清德), came in first, the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) candidate, New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜), came in second and the Taiwan People’s Party’s (TPP) candidate, Chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), came in last in the presidential election. The gap between Lai and Hou or between Hou and Ko was about 7 percentage points, almost as if it were a mathematical sequence.
Of the more than one dozen polls, the most absurd was the TPP’s final internal poll conducted by a private polling firm showing that support for Lai, Ko and Hou were about 27.2, 26.9 and 26.4 percent respectively — the gap between the three candidates being less than 1 percentage point. From the election results, Ko not only fell from second to last place, but the gap between the highest and lowest of the three candidates was as wide as 14 percentage points. Even if the poll’s margin of error was counted as 6 percentage points, it was not enough to cover up this massive error.
Even more ridiculous is that before the election, it was the TPP that was making noises about how the other polls were being falsified, saying that it would record all the polls one by one, while quoting from tycoon Warren Buffett: “Only when the tide goes out do you learn who has been swimming naked.” Ironically, it turns out that the one who had been swimming naked as the tide went out was none other than Ko.
This time, the police discovered that some Taiwanese had received instructions from external forces to produce fake polls and news, which cannot be rectified by the law on no polling being released 10 days before an election. The law itself might be “unconstitutional” in nature. In the US, polls can be released freely up to the last day before an election, while “exit polls” are available on election day. So the US fully considers the public’s right to be informed on elections, especially in an emergency.
I would like to suggest that the National Communications Commission lift the ban on the release of pre-election polls and devise some complementary measures, such as the mandatory self-disclosure of past performance and relevant records when an organization releases polls.
For example, in the next presidential election in four years’ time, all polling organizations should be mandated to self-disclose the sampling methodology and the orders of questions, which are often used to induce respondents to answer in a way that manipulates polls.
Moreover, they should self-disclose their own records on the accuracy of previous polls — such as a comparison chart between the poll results in the closing three months of the most recent presidential election and the election results.
Newly established polling organizations should have to state clearly that “this organization has not conducted any previous [presidential] election polling, and this is the first time,” so the public could ground their judgement.
Polling organizations should face their own past records. All those who have falsified polls should not be allowed to automatically clear their records in the next presidential election and don swimming trunks to pretend they had never been swimming naked.
Liu Ying is a physician.
Translated by Eddy Chang
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