Cognitive madisoniansim is crucial in political situations. It is not only an important value of democratic societies, but also a factor in explaining split-ticket voting. With the increase of minor parties and candidates, the media believe that Taiwan’s 2016 general elections have shown the most fierce split-ticket voting. It is worth mentioning that we shall not ignore the issue of endogeneity caused by partisanship when discussing the relationship between cognitive madisoniansim and split-ticket voting. Based on the panel data of TEDS2016, this study aims to recategorize the cognitive madisoniansim of the respondents and resolve the issue of endogeneity by applying a generalized structural equation model (GSEM). By doing so, we aim to examine the relationship between cognitive madisoniansim and splitticket voting.

The findings show that the public’s cognitive madisoniansim was indeed affected by party preference. DPP supporters have tended to support cognitive madisoniansim in the past. However, they stopped supporting it once the DDP took over the government. The KMT showed the opposite situation. They had been against cognitive madisoniansim in the past. When they began losing elections, they started to support it. Regarding voting decisions, cognitive madsoniansim has positive effects on people’s decisions about straight-ticket voting or split-ticket voting. Nevertheless, most voters who cast straight-ticket voting for the DPP are those who stopped supporting or constantly supported cognitive madisoniansim. These two groups of voters both prefer the DDP. This result indicates that the effect of voters’ cognitive madisoniansim on their voting behaviors still reflects their party preference. The above-mentioned issues present the endogeneity issue derived by explaining the split-ticket voting behaviors by cognitive madisoniansim and the inevitability of GSEM methods. We suggest that researchers not ignore the effect of party preference as they examine the relationship between cognitive madisoniansim and split-ticket voting.