Taiwan's Election and Democratization Study （TEDS） integrates large-scale face-to-face public opinion polls related to elections, effectively utilizing limited resources and strengthening the collaborative interaction between political science and social science centers. This initiative aims to achieve the goal of "transparency in processes and shared outcomes," leaving a systematic record and valuable research data on Taiwan's democratic journey.
Vote for Your Values
Established in 2000 and supported by the Department of Humanities and Social Science of the National Science and Technology Council, this large-scale public opinion survey research project collects the opinions of Taiwanese citizens. It provides valuable resources for the academic community and policymakers, enhancing the understanding of Taiwan's democratic process and promoting the development of academia and society. In 2008, it was selected as one of the top 50 projects of the past 50 years in the "Science 50" initiative.
Survey topics include Legislative Yuan elections, county and city mayor elections, presidential and Legislative Yuan elections, presidential approval ratings, and online public opinion polls on referendums. The project is designed with cross-university collaboration, integrating various survey methods such as face-to-face interviews, telephone interviews, and online surveys, using a consistent and standardized execution process to improve data quality and enhance its cumulative value.
Data Open
Telephone and Mobile Phone Interview Survey of the Presidential Satisfaction-- The Forty-Seventh Wave (TEDS2024_PA06)
The telephone survey was conducted using a Computer-Assisted Telephone Interviewing (CATI) system. Respondents included adults aged 20 and above who are registered residents of Taiwan and live in residential or mixed-use (residential and commercial) households with landline phones. The mobile phone survey targeted adults who are also registered residents of Taiwan, aged 20 and above, and exclusively use mobile phones.
The landline survey was conducted over six days, from June 14 to June 19, 2024, and yielded 720 valid responses. The mobile phone survey produced 506 valid responses. The questionnaire consisted of seven major sections: demographic information, satisfaction with presidential performance, presidential approval ratings, issue positions, party preferences, evaluations of the ruling and opposition parties, and a “feeling thermometer” measuring sentiment toward political figures.
Survey Data
Our Features
Focusing on public opinion, the survey explores changes in public views on the president's performance and various important political issues through multiple election cycle surveys. By adopting a cross-university collaboration model, the survey integrates face-to-face interviews, telephone interviews, and online surveys. It utilizes consistent and standardized execution processes, along with the use and development of effective high-tech survey methods, to enhance data quality and ensure the accumulation of reliable information over time.
Continuing collaboration with international academic networks such as the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES), which involves members from over 50 countries, and the Comparative National Elections Project (CNEP) with participation from more than 20 countries, these global comparative research topics are integrated into the core questionnaires.
These data are invaluable for cross-national comparative research on democratic systems and multi-level analysis. The research outcomes published in academic journals, books, or book chapters based on the data released from the database have exceeded a thousand publications. Among them, 69 articles have been published in international journals ranked in Q1, and two academic books have been published by renowned scholarly publishers, Columbia University Press and Oxford University Press.
Adhering to the principle of "open process, shared outcomes," the data is released in both Chinese and English once the verification process is complete. The data from the Taiwan Election and Democratization Study (TEDS) is also available in the database of the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) at the University of Michigan, further increasing the international visibility of the database. This allows TEDS to serve as an important window for the international academic community to observe Taiwan's democratic elections, making Taiwan's electoral research data a public resource for global scholarly research.
How We Conduct Surveys
Before presidential and legislative elections, multiple surveys are conducted with carefully planned questionnaire content. These include core questions shared across waves, allowing for comparing public opinion shifts throughout the campaign period. Each wave also contains independent questions tailored to the specific issues of that election phase. After the election, panel follow-up surveys are conducted, focusing on the same core pre-election questions while incorporating new questions designed to reflect the post-election context. During the Nine-in-One local elections, post-election telephone interviews target voters registered in Taipei City, Taichung City, and Kaohsiung City. The questionnaire design across these three special municipalities includes shared core questions, ensuring comparability of public opinion changes during the election campaigns.
The "Presidential Approval Quarterly Phone Survey" is conducted using both telephone and mobile phone interviews simultaneously. For telephone interviews, the sampling frame is based on the " Telephone Directory" by Chunghwa Telecom. It is used to select telephone samples from various counties and cities. To increase the chance of reaching unlisted households, the last one to four digits of the phone numbers are randomly altered. The final respondents are drawn from this adjusted sample. For mobile phone interviews, the sample is generated using the most recent "allocation of mobile number prefixes" announced by the National Communications Commission (NCC). The final five digits of mobile numbers are randomly generated to create a complete sample list for interviews.
In collaboration with the Election Study Center of National Chengchi University, an online public opinion survey respondent database has been established, along with an online survey experiment design platform. This platform facilitates survey research through online questionnaires. Researchers can design various types of questions such as single-choice, multiple-choice, open-ended, or experimental designs, with the platform providing the necessary tools to build the corresponding question sets for the surveys.
Research Resources
Rich political science research extends across political and sociology-related departments in universities throughout Taiwan, as well as government agencies and related projects. TEDS not only focuses on Taiwan’s elections and political transitions but also enables comparative studies of electoral systems worldwide. By connecting Taiwan’s perspective with global research, it provides deeper insights into the country’s democratic development.
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