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PS 139
Background
The 2004 Taiwanese presidential election was one of the most controversial and highly
contested presidential elections in the history of Taiwan. The incumbent candidate Chen Shuibian () of the Democratic Progressive Party () was declared the winner with
50.11% of the valid votes while the challenger Lien Chan () of the Kuomintang (
) lost with 49.89% of the votes, a margin of only 0.22%.1 Not only was the race very close but
there were also more invalid ballots in this election than any of the previous ones; 2.5% of the
total votes were considered to be invalid in the 2004 election in comparison to the 1% of votes
that were considered invalid in the 2000 election.2 Claiming that the majority of the invalid votes
were in favor of Lien and that voter fraud had taken place, the Kuomintang contested the
outcome of the election. Among these accusations, in an unusual event for modern-day Taiwan,
the 2004 election was marred by political violence. A day before the election, Chen Shui-bian
and his running-mate, Vice President Annette Lu, were mildly injured by gunshot wounds from
an assassination attempt.3 Lien and his supporters claimed that the assassination attempt was
staged in an effort to garner sympathy votes, furthering their accusations of an unfair election.
In order to understand the 2004 Taiwanese presidential election, it is important to
understand the history of the Taiwanese government and the party system in Taiwan. In 1912,
the current Taiwanese government was established in mainland China by the Kuomintang (KMT)
to challenge the Communist party.4 At this time, Taiwan was considered a colony of Japan.
1
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Following the surrender of Japan in WWII and the loss of the Kuomintang in the 1949 Chinese
Civil War, Chiang Kai-shek and his 2 million supporters retreated to Taiwan, creating the
modern-day Republic of China. However, the Chinese who had inhabited the island prior to
WWII were displeased with the new government, and, as a result, the beginning years of the
KMTs rule in Taiwan were marred with violence between the Taiwanese inhabitants and the
mainland China refugees.
The conflict the KMT experienced reveals much about the demographic issues
surrounding Taiwanese politics. Although Taiwan may appear to be ethnically homogeneous
96% of the population is considered Han Chinesethere are ethnic subgroups that cause distinct
voting trends. Currently, about 13% of the population is descended from the mainlanders who
came in the 1940s with the Kuomintang, about 15% are ethnic Hakka, and about 70% are ethnic
Hoklo.4, 5 The Hakka and the Hoklo, though originally from the mainland, began to immigrate to
Taiwan in the 16th century. Traditionally, the mainlanders and their descendants tend to support
the Kuomintang, while the ethnic Hoklo tend to support the Democratic Progressive Party.
Voting in Taiwan
Taiwan has universal suffrage for adults over the age of 204. Votes are marked by stamps
on paper ballots, and the ballots are hand-counted. While voting is occurring, photography is
forbidden, but the counting process is open to the public and allowed to be photographed. In
order that vote miscounting does not occur, the counting is observed by representatives from all
parties. Additionally, all polling stations require several staff, one policeman, and one
representative from each party to be present.2
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the assassination attempt was staged by the DPP, and polls have shown that the majority of the
public does not believe the officials explanation for the events.3
Election Data
Election data for all presidential elections in Taiwan since 1996 are accessible in the
archives section of the Taiwanese Central Election Commissions () website.1
Data were downloadable in Excel format and included results from individual precincts
nationwide. Each individual precinct had an average of about 1000 eligible voters, and for the
2004 presidential election, there were 13,792 precincts. At the time of the election, Taiwan was
divided into 18 counties () and 7 provincial level/special cities (/). Counties were
divided into townships (/) or county-level cities (), while provincial level and special
cities were divided into districts (). The smallest administrative division is villages (/).
Our data showed the village in which each precinct was located.
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The turnout distribution for the 2004 Taiwan Presidential election for all polling stations
in Taiwan (Fig. 1), despite the overall rough shape of the turnout distribution curve, follows a
fairly Gaussian shape. A certain feature to note is the peak in the distribution around 83%,
signifying that the data is skewed to the left. Despite this off-centeredness, because we see that
the data does not also exhibit an extended right tail or additional peaks in higher turnout, we can
conclude that there is no indication of any significant amount of ballot-stuffing. Furthermore,
since the turnout distribution is not perfectly symmetrical, it is unlikely that much vote-stealing
occurred.
5000
4000
3000
2000
1000
50
52.5
55
57.5
60
62.5
65
67.5
70
72.5
75
77.5
80
82.5
85
87.5
90
92.5
95
97.5
100
Voter turnout %
It is also important to look at the data from individual districts because fraud on a smaller
scale may not be evident in the analysis of the overall data. Therefore, we also analyzed the voter
turnout in Taipei County (Fig. 2) and Kaohsiung City (Fig. 3), two of the most populous voting
districts. We observed that the turnout distributions in both municipals have similar features as
the turnout distribution for all of Taiwan. Both histograms look generally Gaussian with a peak
5
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around 83%. Furthermore, both plots are not bimodal and do not have extended right tails or
bumps in higher turnout. This strongly suggests that no significant ballot-stuffing occurred in
these voting districts.
1000
800
600
400
200
0
50
55
60
65
70
75
80
85
90
95
100
95
100
Voter turnout %
400
300
200
100
0
50
55
60
65
70
75
80
85
90
Voter turnout %
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The analysis of the overall voter turnout distribution as well as the voter turnout
distribution in Taipei County and Kaohsiung City indicates that there is no evidence of
significant ballot-stuffing. The distributions consistently display similar features, further
strengthening the argument that there is no evidence to prove that ballot stuffing occurred.
However, this is not to say that no fraudulent practices occurred. We can only conclude that
ballot stuffing is unlikely, but we must perform further analysis to make conclusions about other
fraudulent practices.
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explained by the known geographical preferences. Historically, voters in Taipei County support
the Kuomintang (KMT) party, as it is the region where the party fled to from mainland China.
The data supports the expectation that the KMT candidate, Lien Chan, would garner more votes
than the opposing candidate Chen Shui-bian in Taipei County. Using this reasoning, and the fact
that the V/E vs. T graphs had no alarming features, we see that there is no significant evidence to
prove ballot stuffing occurred at the Taipei county polling stations, despite the higher turnout
leading to an unusually significantly higher number of votes for one candidate over the other.
80
y = 0.3127x + 13.171
R = 0.0139
60
40
20
0
50
60
70
80
90
100
Figure 4 Share of the eligible electorate for Chen Shui-bian in Taipei County
100
80
y = 0.6873x - 13.171
R = 0.0636
60
40
20
0
50
60
70
80
90
100
Figure 5 Share of the eligible electorate for Lien Chan in Taipei County
8
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As before, it is not meaningful to only draw conclusions from data from a limited source.
Therefore, we conducted the V/E vs. T analysis to another voting district, Kaohsiung City for
Chen Shui-bian (Fig. 6) and Lien Chan (Fig. 7). Again, both graphs show linear lines with slopes
between 0 and 1. More specifically, the values of the slopes were roughly equal to the percentage
of votes the candidate received. For Chen Shui-bian, the V/E values are broadly spread, ranging
from 0 to 70%, and are closely aggregated around 30% to 60%. Most points are located around
at voter turnout rates of approximately 83%. For Lien Chan, V/E values extend from 20% to
80%, with most data points clustering between 20% and 50%. Even though the overall range of
V/E for Lien Chan is higher than Chen Shui-Bian, the plot for Chen Shui-Bian has more points
with higher V/E than the plot for Lien Chan. This phenomenon can also be answered by the
known geographical preferences. In contrast to Taipei County, Kaohsiung City has historically
favored the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) candidate. Therefore, it makes sense that Chen
Shui-Bian, the DPP candidate, would receive an overall greater number of favorable votes in the
Kaohsiung City voting district.
80
y = 0.5421x + 1.3176
R = 0.0243
60
40
20
0
50
60
70
80
90
100
Voter turnout
Figure 6 Share of the eligible electorate for Chen Shui-Bian in Kaohsiung City
9
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100
y = 0.4579x - 1.3176
R = 0.0175
80
60
40
20
0
50
60
70
80
90
100
Figure 7 Share of the eligible electorate for Lien Chan in Kaohsiung City
We see that analysis of the plots of V/E vs. T in the Taipei County and Kaohsiung City
voting districts indicates that fraud in the form of made-up voter numbers is unlikely. The plots
are linear and have a slope ranging between 0 and 1, which is considered to be normal. The
seemingly odd discrepancies in the plots for Chen Shui-Bian and Lien Chan can be easily
explained by the known historical voting patterns in Taipei County and Kaohsiung City.
Therefore, we conclude that number misreporting likely did not occur.
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requirement of Benfords Law is that the numbers span several orders of magnitude. The vote
numbers that we used were all either 3 or 4 digit numbers that were very similar to one another,
so Benfords Law cannot be applied in this situation. Instead, we look to see if the shape of the
graph is generally uniform to determine if there was no fraud in election procedure. A particular
indication of possible fraud is a significant lack or excess of 0s and 5s as the last digits. 11 It has
been shown that when fabricating vote numbers, people tend to end the number of votes with a 0
or a 5, so an excess of the number of votes ending with a 0 or a 5 indicates possible number
misreporting; however, since the previously mentioned fact is fairly well know, people trying to
misreport the data may try to overcompensate for this, so a significant lack of 0s and 5s could
also indicate fraud.
The following graphs (Fig. 8, 9) show the plots of last digit numbers against frequency
for Chen Shui-bian and Lien Chen respectively. Both plots show a fairly random, yet even
distribution, although there is a peak in the frequency of vote numbers ending with a 9 for Chen
Shui-Bian yet a lack of vote numbers ending with a 9 for Lien Chan. However, this phenomenon
does not necessarily indicate any fraud. Additionally, the fact that there is no anomaly in the
frequency of 0s and 5s suggests that there was no misreporting of vote numbers, although it
only concludes that there is no proof of such fraud, rather than there was no fraud.
11
PS 139
Frequency
Ones digit
Figure 8 Ones digit frequency for the number of votes for Chen in each voting district
Frequency
Ones digit
Figure 9 Ones digit frequency for the number of votes for Lien in each voting district
Similarly, the distribution of the last two digits of official vote counts can be analyzed to
detect fraud. Experiments by Berber et al. have shown that when people are asked to choose
random numbers, they tend to avoid repeated digits, such as 11 or 55, and instead prefer
12
PS 139
consecutive digits such, as 12 or 78.11 A low frequency of repeated digit numbers and a high
frequency of consecutive digit numbers indicate the possibility of election result manipulation.
Frequency
200
150
100
50
0
0 4 8 12 16 20 24 28 32 36 40 44 48 52 56 60 64 68 72 76 80 84 88 92 96
Last two digits
Figure 10 Last two digit frequencies for the number of votes for Chen in each voting district
Frequency
200
150
100
50
0
0 4 8 12 16 20 24 28 32 36 4044 4852 56 60 64 68 72 76 80 8488 9296
Last two digits
Figure 11 Last two digit frequencies for the number of votes for Lien in each voting district
13
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We see that the graphs of the last two digits for Lien Chen and Chen-Shui Bian (Fig. 10,
11) show a random distribution of frequencies, with the exception of a peak from 00 to 10;
however, there were neither spikes at digits of adjacent numbers nor significantly low frequency
at repeated number digits. Thus, it is unlikely that manipulation of results occurred in the 2004
presidential election. The last two digit frequencies (Fig 12, 13) confirm that fabrication of
results was unlikely. If there was fraud, there would be a lower number of vote counts in the
diagonal line corresponding to paired digits. Since the data does not show significant deviations
from a random distribution, we conclude that there is no evidence of the manipulation of election
Figure 12 Last two digit frequency plot of ones digit vs. tens digit for the number of votes for
Chen in each voting district
14
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Figure 13 Last two digit frequency plot of ones digit vs. tens digit for the number of votes for
Lien in each voting district
15
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passed in 2003 tightened the criteria of what constituted a valid ballot.2 Voters now had to put a
mark in the marking column of the ballot for the ballot to be considered valid. This new
regulation was passed in order to reduce the possibility of vote-buying, since previous
investigations had found that voters who accepted money for votes would put a stamp on the
candidates face or names to show the voting captains that they had indeed carried through with
the conditions of their bribe.9
The overall histogram of the percentage of invalid votes across the 13,786 voting
precincts is Gaussian but displays an extended tail to the right (Fig. 14). Among the voting
precincts, the average percentage of invalid votes was 2.73%, and the standard deviation was
approximately 1.44%. The large standard deviation explains the large tail to the right that is
observed. Not shown in the histogram are an additional 18 precincts with invalid ballot
percentages above 10%. The highest percentage of invalid ballots (19.28%) occurred in a
precinct made up of parts of Anjhao Village( ), Yanchao Township ( ), and
Kaohsiung County () (Fig. 15).1 Interestingly, a neighboring precinct that encompasses
other parts of the same village also displayed a high percentage of invalid ballots (12.874%). At
first glance, these two precincts data appear to be suspicious, as the KMT carried these two
precincts with an overwhelming majority (greater than 95%). Further adding to the suspicion is
that Kaohsiung County is traditionally a pan-green stronghold yet Chen Shui-bian carried the
county by a sizable margin (almost 20%). Upon further investigation, the particular village is the
location of a veterans home ( ). Traditionally, those affiliated with the military,
especially if they are of the same generation that came to Taiwan with the Nationalists,
overwhelmingly support the KMT. The high percentage of invalid votes could also have been a
way for them to protest the platforms that Lien Chan ran on; the veterans likely believed Liens
16
PS 139
platform to be too moderate and thus, spoiled their votes as a way of showing their displeasure.
Out of the 18 total precincts with invalid ballot percentages above 10%, in 11 of the precincts, at
least 80% of the valid votes were for Lien Chan. These precincts are probably former military
dependents villages () or veterans homes that traditionally vote overwhelmingly for the
KMT. This provides evidence against Liens claim that many of the spoiled ballots were in fact
votes cast for him, since many of the precincts with the highest percentages of invalid ballots
were staunch KMT strongholds.
Frequency
2500
2000
1500
1000
500
0
0
10
Invalid votes %
# of
Votes
for
Chen
Shui
Bian
10
11
%
Chen
# of
Votes
for
Lien
Chan
%
Lien
3.4364
4.1045
281
257
96.564
95.896
291
268
43
64
334
332
%Invalid
12.874
19.277
Total
Voter
Electorate Turnout
542
573
61.6236
57.9407
Figure 15 2004 Election Results in Anjhao Village (), Yanchao Township (),
Kaohsiung County () (2 precincts)
17
PS 139
On Taiwans relatively isolated east coast, two neighboring precincts in Taichang Village
(), Yuli Township (), Hualien County () had high percentages of invalid
votes (Fig. 16). Both of these precincts displayed voter turnout rates well below average (29.98%
and 13.55%), and the percentage of invalid votes were both in the 17% range.1 In the precinct
with 13.55% turnout, 87.69% of the valid votes were for Lien. Some investigations confirm that
there is a high population of veterans in the village since it is home to a veterans hospital (
). In the other precinct, however, Lien only received 55.3% of the valid votes, whereas
Chen Shui-bian received 44.7% of the votes. In Yuli Township, there are a high number of
Hakka () and Ami aboriginals (), which may explain the tightness of the race in
this particularly precinct, since Ami aboriginals tend to support the DPP and Hakka voters, while
not overwhelmingly blue or green, tend to vote for the KMT since they seem to be comfortable
with the status quo and often desire closer relations with China5.
What does seem suspicious in these two precincts is the extremely low voter turnout.
These two precincts not only had some of the highest percentage of invalid ballots in the entire
country but they also had the two lowest voter turnouts out of all precincts. A cursory glance at
the location of Taichang Village shows that although some of the village area is composed of
rugged mountains, the majority of the population seems to be concentrated in a traditional
Taiwanese small town environment, which does not seem to indicate difficult access to voting
stations. If we look at data from other elections (2000 and 2008), these two precincts display
somewhat lower than average voter turnout, but the voter turnout percentage is still higher than
in 2004 (Fig. 17, 18) Although the precinct boundaries changed from 3 precincts in 2000 to 2
precincts in 2004 and 2008, an interesting contrast between the 2004 election and the 2000 and
2008 elections is that the DPP managed to garner a much greater proportion of the votes in one
18
PS 139
of the precincts in 2004 (44.7%). In 2008, for instance, the DPP was only able to win 23.72% of
the votes in one of the precincts of Taichang Village. In 2000, when there was a three-way race
and Taichang was split into 3 precincts, one of the precincts gave 15.33% of the votes to the DPP,
while the other two precincts had support for the DPP in the low single figure percentage points.
Strangely enough, in the 2000 election, one of the precincts in Taichang Village also had the
highest percentage of invalid ballots in the entire country (13.66%), while the percentage of
invalid votes for the entire country was 0.96%. Furthermore, the voter turnout in this same
precinct was the second lowest in the entire country. The higher percentage of votes for the DPP
in 2004 may have been due to the apparently high number of people who abstained from voting
or the high number of people who spoiled their ballots, since the people most likely to voice their
discontent were probably KMT supporters who disliked Chen Shui-bian. Still, further
investigation is needed in this particular village because it is small, rural, and isolated, and it
would be interesting to see why voter turnout has been consistently much lower than average.
Ballot stuffing is unlikely to have occurred because voter turnout was so low, but perhaps there
were other forms of fraud such as vote buying or intimidation of potential voters.
# of
Votes
for
Chen
Shui
Bian
97
8
%
Chen
# of
Votes
for Lien
Chan
%
Lien
44.7
12.308
120
57
55.3
87.692
217
65
45
14
262
79
17.18
17.72
874
583
29.9771
13.5506
Figure 16 2004 Election Results in Taichang Village (), Yuli Township (),
Hualien County () (2 precincts)
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# of votes
James Soong
(Independent)
% of votes
61.42
10.09
12.95
# of votes
215
567
231
% of votes
22.73
84.12
83.09
# of votes
% of votes
0.21
1.04
0.72
# of votes
% of votes
0.32
0.59
0.72
# of votes
145
28
% of votes
15.33
4.15
2.52
Valid Votes
946
674
278
Invalid Votes
59
44
Total Votes
953
733
322
% Invalid
0.73
8.05
13.66
Total electorate
1244
1217
857
Voter Turnout %
76.61
60.23
37.57
Figure 17 2000 Election Results in Taichang Village (), Yuli Township (),
Hualien County () (3 precincts)
# of Votes
for Frank
Hsieh
(DPP)
%
Hsie
h
# of Votes
for Ma Yingjeou (KMT,
winner)
111
23.72
357
32
9.44
307
%
Ma
76.2
8
90.5
6
Valid
Vote
s
Invali
d
Votes
Total
Vote
s
%Invali
d
Total
Electorat
e
Voter
Turnout
%
468
17
485
3.63
928
52.26
344
344
1.45
1051
32.73
Figure 18 2008 Election Results in Taichang Village (), Yuli Township (),
Hualien County () (2 precincts)
20
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Conclusion
Overall, there was no evidence of large-scale fraudulent activity detected in the 2004
Taiwanese presidential election using the methods available to us. Our analysis shows that
Taiwans 2004 presidential election bears a closer resemblance to elections conducted in the
United States than to the blatantly rigged elections of Russia and other former Soviet states.,
furthering our claim that there most likely none to very little fraud.12 We failed to find evidence
of manipulation of election results, and based on our albeit rudimentary work, the KMTs claims
of an unfair election seem unfounded. Although the assassination attempt on Chen Shui-bian
may have swayed key swing voters, any effect that the event may have had on voting trends
would not be detectable using our methods. Still, though we were unable to detect fraud on a
large scale, our indicators are too crude to detect more subtle forms of election manipulation.
Nefarious activities such as vote buying may still exist, but this behavior would occur only at an
extremely local scale and require highly specialized methods to be detected. Although Taiwans
elections seem to be fair and free of blatant fraud, its authoritarian past and current role as the
sole democracy in the Chinese-speaking world make for interesting trends in voting and warrant
continued analysis of its political system.
21
PS 139
References
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2.
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<http://www.romanization.com/taiwan_election/election.html>.
3.
Ramzy, Austin. "Who Shot Chen Shui-Bian?" Time. Time, 14 Mar. 2005. Web. 6 Mar. 2012.
<http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1037702,00.html>.
4.
5.
"Taiwan's Huge Hakka Population Much Sought After By Politicians Of All Stripes." 17 Nov. 2009. Web.
7 Mar. 2012. <http://www.cablegatesearch.net/cable.php?id=09TAIPEI1368>.
6.
Bradsher, Keith, and Joseph Kahn. "Taiwans President Appears to Win Election." The New York Times.
The New York Times, 20 Mar. 2004. Web. 6 Mar. 2012.
<http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/20/international/asia/20CND-TAIWAN.html?pagewanted=all>.
7.
Myagkov, Mikhail G., Peter C. Ordeshook, and Dimitri Shakin. The Forensics of Election Fraud: Russia
and Ukraine. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2009. Print.
8.
Hong, Caroline. "Civic Group Proud over Number of Invalid Ballots." - Taipei Times. Taipei Times, 22
Mar. 2004. Web. 6 Mar. 2012.
9.
Schafferer, Christian. "The 2004 Presidential Election in Taiwan." Online Journal of the Austrian
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<http://www.eastasia.at/vol3_1/elect2004.pdf>.
10. Benford, Frank. The law of anomalous numbers. Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society,
1938. Web. 6 Mar. 2012. <
<http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/984802?uid=3739560&uid=2129&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&uid=37
39256&sid=55899899333>.
11. Berber, Bernd.; Scacco, Alexandra. What the numbers say: A digit based test for election fraud using new
data from Nigeria. 2008.
12. Chiang, Lichun and Peter C. Ordeshook. Fraud, Elections, and the American Gene in Taiwans
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