Publishing opinion poll results is banned during the 10 days leading up to an election, according to the Central Election Commission. Violators will be fined between NT$500,000 ($16,500) and NT$5 million, the commission said in a statement. Thus, many of the major polling outlets and media have conducted polls in the final days before the deadline, and we present a round-up of them in the table below (also just before the deadline!).

Much ink has been spilled over the reliability of Taiwan’s polls. Indeed, historically, standard polling methodologies, even when followed correctly, have usually been biased to a certain extent against the DPP. Explanations for this range from residual fear of revealing political preferences to strangers to inability of standard telephone calling to reach people who work odd hours.

Of course, as the investment firms say, “past performance does not guarantee future results.” The big questions for observers of this election are, to what extent will that historical bias appear again? And who will actually turn out at the polls? These will determine the victory.

To summarize the results, all standard polls show Ma in the lead, with a range of margins ranging from 8 points (United Daily News, TVBS) to 0.7 points (Taiwan ThinkTank). The respective blue and green biases of those three sources seem to show through clearly. The DPP also released its internal polls, which are historically quite accurate, but of course they don’t release the parts they don’t want people to see. With a different methodology consisting of combining polls from over 60 legislative districts, they announced that they expect Tsai to win by 1 point, on a turnout of 78-80% (for more details of the DPP’s methodology, see this report in the Taipei Times.) Finally, the much-talked about xFuture/NCCU Exchange of Future Events has Tsai in the lead by 7.2% (Tsai 49.8, Ma 42.6, Soong 10.7) and this trend has been consistent since mid-December. Exchange of Future Events claims accuracy of 95% two months ahead of 2008 presidential elections and 97.6% on the eve of the election day. (for brief introduction to the accuracy of prediction markets see the post on the Ballots & Bullets blog).

Analysis reported by one scholar, Dr. Tung Chen-yuan of National Chengchi University (who also runs xFuture) stated that these final polls make him feel relatively confident in the xFuture prediction. He pointed out that in 2008, the final UDN poll showed Ma leading by 30 points, 13 points more than the actual margin of 17, and that China Times likewise overestimated the gap by 10% and TVBS by 7% (as quoted on Jan. 3 in a report in NOW News (in Chinese))

Finally, we may observe, again with reference to 2008, that the DPP candidate Frank Hsieh received 42% of the votes, in the face of public dissatisfaction with the DPP administration and Ma at the height of his popularity. It is hardly conceivable that Tsai would do worse than that; indeed she certainly will do significantly better.

The conclusion: the election is too close to call.

Note on Legislative Yuan elections

Election polls for Legislative Yuan (LY) were not published in comprehensive form that would allow similar comparison between different sources. The only source that provided breakdown for all LY seats is xFuture/NCCU. It gives 55 seats for KMT, 52 seats for DPP and 6 for independents. However, the accuracy of the future market’s predictions for the 2008 LY elections was significantly lower at 80%. Although it still outperformed traditional polls, the nature of the current election system provides space for significantly different results.

Table: Summary of polls/predictions for presidential elections

Release Date	Source	Ma	Tsai	Soong	Undecided	Change in Ma’s margin since last poll by same outlet*
Jan 3	UDN	44	36	7	13	Nil
	China Times	39.5	36.5	5.8	18.2	Down 2.0
	NOW News	36.7	32.3	10.1		Down 1.7
	DPP Internal Polls		Ahead by 1
	KMT internal polls	Ahead by 10
	xFuture	42.6	49.8	10.7
Jan 2	Apple Daily	42.2	35.7	6.2	15.9	Down 1.5
	TVBS	45	37	6		Down 1.0
Jan 1	Taiwan ThinkTank	38.8	37.8	11.6		Up 0.6

* These earlier polls were conducted on various dates in December; however, they provide a different reference point.

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