Democracy, Political Parties, and Taiwan\'s Mass Politics: Research on the Electorate in the 1996 Presidential Election

Therefore, studying the electorate in presidential elections will no doubt become a focal point in future studies of voting behavior in Taiwan. In designing the questionnaire, the research team chose to use the structured closed-questionnaire format with a few open-ended questions. The open-ended questions asked interviewees about what problems they thought needed to be solved first ; what political positions and propositions of the candidates they supported; and if and why they considered choosing an opposing presidential candidate.

Ten parts make up the whole structure of the questionnaire, with the first two parts beginning with the electorate\'s political attitudes and interests , then their knowledge of each group of candidates and their evaluation of each candidate\'s personal characteristics and abilities . The third part includes party identification and party image , followed by the fourth part inquiring about group identification . The fifth part concerns issues raised during the election and each candidate\'s position on the issues.

The sixth part includes voting choices, voting motivations, and voting orientations . The seventh part includes the use of media and social networks. The eighth part is general political attitudes, which include viewpoints on the unification-independence issue, the Lee Teng-hui Complex, and attitudes toward Mainland China\'s military exercises.

The ninth part is perception of the presidential election process and assessment of the election . The last part asks for the interviewee\'s personal data, such as age, educational level , occupation, and income. The purpose of this survey is to study the level of impact evaluation of candidates has on an electorate\'s voting decisions.

Besides taking into account the important demographic characteristics of the sample population, it is critical to make certain that the percentage of votes given to the three parties in the sampled areas accord with the distribution of votes in the areas where each presidential candidate holds majority support. To meet the needs of our research, we use the multiple-stage sampling method. It includes the principle of probabilities proportional to size (PPS) , combined with stratified sampling and systematic sampling to strengthen the representation of the sample.