FORECASTING TAIWAN’S PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS (2008 TO 2012) FROM PRE-ELECTION MEDIA POLLS: A “COVERAGE FORECASTING MODEL” CONSIDERED*

Abstract

In Taiwan, many politicians and journalists are
accustomed to relying on pre-election media polls for their
projections of presidential election outcomes. However, this
approach always ignores the critical issue of noncoverage
problems underlying telephone surveys, which are popular in
Taiwan’s media polling industry. The study suggests that, in an
effort to improve the prediction accuracy, election forecasting
researchers should focus more on the exploration of the likely
voting intention of various types of voters, including noncoverage
voters, refusal voters, undecided voters, and decided voters.