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Note: This article represents the view of the author and not the University of Hong Kong.

Taiwan is a highly democratic Chinese community, but during their 6th Legislative Council election, Taiwan medias did not conduct any exit polls. This situation was very different from the Presidential election in March. At that time, TVBS carried out the first exit poll on the first day of the Presidential election, Eastern Television conducted 'enhanced exit poll', whereas FTV announced the operation of 'immediate interactive opinion survey', but the results have never been announced at the end. Nonetheless, according to the author's observation, only TVBS carried out the poll at the exit of the polling station, which truly belongs to the international standard of an 'exit poll'.

TVBS carried out their first exit poll during the Taipei Mayor Election in 1998. The whole exit poll was operated by a marketing company called Market Wise; whereas the Presidential election exit poll carried out in Taiwan in March this year was operated by TVBS themselves. Apart from some of the exit polls conducted in small scale for discussion purposes, those two examples were the only large-scale exit polls in the Taiwan history.

Starting when the author administered exit polls in Hong Kong from 1991, the author is indeed very happy to see Taiwan has developed its own exit polls, and would like to give some comments to those Taiwan friends who are carrying out the polls. Of course, how Taiwan medias develop exit polls is none of our business here. But it is a good practice if Hong Kong and Taiwan can learn from each other. Let us first discuss the functions and operations of exit polls, and then the political pressure and administrative interference involved.

The author thinks that exit polls serve two major purposes. Firstly, medias can forecast election outcomes through exit polls; and secondly, exit polls can provide scientific analyses for the election outcomes and reports. The first function, when vote counting is such a complicated and time consuming process, exit poll is almost an essential tool which cannot be missed out. Since information flow is very important in the society, the general public and investors can never wait until the announcement of the outcome after few days or even few weeks time. Some countries have serious election bribery problems, and people would prefer the results from exit poll which is quick and independent than the official counts. Since exit polls serve this purpose, only independent medias from advanced countries are willing to spend vast amount of resources for exit polling. According to the news report, medias in the US jointly spent ten million US dollars on exit polls on the election day in November this year. The fees may even be 2-folded in year 2008.

The second objective of exit poll is also the main reason of why the author conducted exit polls in Hong Kong and Macau continuously. The exit polls conducted by the author involve questionnaire which is a bit lengthy and complicated, the aim is to gain more in-depth information. However, most of the exit polls conducted by the author are sponsored by medias, part of the outcomes are used to predict the election outcome. As an academic opinion survey researcher, the author would like to have a win-win scenario, which means the exit poll can be used as a forecast, as well as for election research. Comparing with Taiwan or other Western societies, this is one of the characteristics of exit polls in Hong Kong.

Nonetheless, Hong Kong has a special phenomenon in recent years. Some of the political parties conducted large-scale exit polls on the election day, and applied the results immediately on the electoral engineering activities. Since those political parties did not properly announce that they were conducting exit polls, it seems that they were cheating the voters. The author hopes that political parties in Taiwan do not follow these practices.

This also connects to the operation of the exit polls. Exit polls were first appeared in the US, and they had a history of more than 40 years. During these years, there were many controversies. In the presidential election in 1980, due to the time difference between the east and west coast, some of the medias had already announced that Ronald Reagan beat down Jimmy Carter before the election ended in the West coast. This raised many debates in the country. In the 2000 presidential election, medias kept revising the exit poll prediction at Florida on the election day. This led to a flutuated prediction about the election outcome between George Bush and Al Gore. Regarding the American presidential election this year, the US academias and commentators are still arguing whether the exit polls figures are misleading the voters.

Concluding the above arguments, it seems that all the controversies were related to exit polls' accuracy, release time and impact to the voters. American societies advocate freedom of speech and information; therefore exit polls carried out by the medias are not restricted. The above controversies are basically handled by the medias themselves. Although Hong Kong societies cannot be described as democratic, we still uphold the freedom of law and order, our laws did not restrict exit polls. But it is stipulated by the Electoral Affairs Commission (EAC) that exit polls results should not be announced by the medias prior the end of the election, otherwise they would be reprimanded publicly, that is all about the regulation can do. Medias and academia were so far very self-discipline, and never announced the estimation of candidates' vote counts nor informed the candidates about the results before the election was over. Whether this kind of discipline would be adjusted due to the exit polls organized by the political parties for the electoral engineering purposes is another issue.

In Taiwan, the discussion on exit polls seems to wander between 'can' or 'cannot'. From the 'cannot' perspective, it comes up to another problem unique to the Taiwan community, which is if once the exit poll prediction is announced, even though the election has finished, it may lead to some of the sentimental reactions from the public where government and political parties do not want. This point is quite different from the debates about exit polls in the previous discussion. The author thinks that this type of anxiety is not necessary at all. Once the exit poll follows scientific methods, and the operation does not hinder the voting procedures, whether the prediction is accurate and what the public response is should let the public decide or let the medias taking up the responsibility. Using policies or laws to interfere the opinion polls would only prohibit the flow of information.

According to the Presidential and Vice Presidential Election and Recall Act in Taiwan, within 30 feet around the polling station, "The person has made a din or has interfered with or persuaded others to vote or not to vote, in defiance of interdiction." is against the law. If the person persists to commit the same behavior after the inspector ordered that person to leave the polls or the ballot opening station, the person may be put to jail or subject to other penalty. But bear in mind is that these are not the evidences to stop doing exit polls. In Macau, the Legislative Council Election Regulations banned the voters to 'release whom they voted or they would like to vote' within 100 feet around the ballot station. Nevertheless, the author could still conduct exit poll in Macau, only the questions related to voters' will were not asked, and the exit poll results were not released on the election day.

Taiwan is so called a Chinese community, various types of opinion polls are supposed to develop gradually. Although Taiwan's vote counting is extraordinarily fast, from the perspective of information speed and analysis width, exit poll still has its capacity to develop. After 4pm, opinion figures with more angles and evidences are always more meaningful than those speedy vote counts.

In Taiwan, exit polls are still novel, it is also an important indicator of whether Taiwan is moving towards democracy. If Taiwan people do not treasure this opportunity, and if the medias do not jointly develop a credible and professional polling system, the authority would only continue to oppress the development of exit polls, or even ban it by law. In other words, it is hard for Taiwan to become a Chinese model of a democratic community.