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The US Presidential Election in 2000: Characteristics and Defects
Split ticket voting by New Party identifiers and Mainlanders had acrucial influence on the outcome of the 1998 Taipei City mayoral election.Large numbers of voters who identified themselves as New Party supportersvoted for the KMT mayoral candidate.However,in the concurrentCity Council elections,they voted for New Party candidates.This surprisingresult is worth researching.To analyze split ticket voting behavior,we consider six different logitmodels.After controlling basic demographic variables,including sex,age,education,and ethnic background,it is possible to discover what influencessplit ticket voting.First,weakening party identification can inducea dealignment process.This,in turn,gives rise to split ticketvoting.In the data,the intensity of party identification has an obvious effecton split ticket voting.However,there has been no dealignment.Thus,weakening party identification is not the main reason for split ticketvoting.The second factor is ethnic background.Mainlanders,especiallyyoung and middle aged voters,are more likely to split their tickets.Third,the related questions of unification or independence and Taiwaneseor Chinese identification also have influence.The effect of theunification/independence position is not significant,but therespondents' ethnic identity is.A fourth finding is that there is no significantcoattail effect influencing split ticket voting.Fifth,many voterswish to balance the parties against each other,and so they split theirvotes.Sixth,strategic voting by New Party supporters was very important.New Party supporters were very opposed to Chen Shui-bian,andthe New Party nominee did not have much chance of winning.As aresult,many split their votes,voting strategically for the KMT mayoralcandidate.After examining the six models,we find that the most important factorsinfluencing split ticket voting are ethnic background and strategicvoting by New Party supporters.These two factors are intimately connected,of course.
