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

The author was recently invited to observe the elections in Taiwan. During a visit to the Central Election Commission, the author raised the following question:

"The publication of election polls is banned in Taiwan 10 days before presidential elections, but is allowed in other elections, like legislative elections. Why? Is it to prevent the influence of opinion polls? What is the direction of future legislation?"

The answer from the Chief Secretariat of the Central Election Commission was that, the future development of the election legislation in Taiwan would probably be a complete ban of all the election polls within the next 6 months.

The author was disappointed to hear that and thought this would be a retrogression of the democratic development in Taiwan. Over the past years, according to the observations of the author, the academic experts have in fact shown disapproval of the restrictions. Yet, due to various pressure and the deficiencies of the concerned polls, no opposition was raised all along.

In fact, major pollsters are still conducting public opinion polls before various elections, only that they have not released the result openly. Political parties, media and many academics in fact are very clear about the result of those surveys in private. This has brought out several important questions about the ban of opinion polls.

Firstly, the importance of freedom of information to the democratic society. Ten days before the presidential election in Taiwan, although the media has stopped releasing the opinion polls, one can see a flood of different candidates' publicity and election advertisements in the media. Many of them involve forecast and judgment of elections based on the internal poll result. If the government allows this kind of assessment, which may be true or false, to influence the voters, why can't objective figures with solid bases derived from scientific method be accommodated? In a mature democratic society, the duty of the media is to safeguard the freedom of information. To leave the valuable election information for political groups and interest groups will violate the spirit of democracy. Besides, while the internet is so popular nowadays, even though the government can prohibit the traditional media from releasing the poll figures, it cannot stop the international media from releasing their polls on the internet. Strict prohibition will only spark off more challenges.

Secondly, the reference value of the independent public opinion figures. Some Taiwan people and candidates reject public opinion polls and they may have their reasons. Yet, in the author's view, the solution should be demanding the pollsters to be more impartial and independent and to establish a professional code of ethics, so as to prevent the political parties from misusing and abusing public opinion polls, and hence the polls can have higher reference value. To resort to legal ban will only deter the development of the opinion polls. On the other hand, if pollsters can adjust the time and format of the releases through self-regulation based on professional considerations, that would be a step forward. Like the Legislative Yuan election which was just over, since the existing election system has created questions to the poll forecast, 7 major bodies thus have reached a consensus not to release the poll result 7 days before the election. This is a kind of progress. However, in the author's view, in order to safeguard the information freedom, a 7-day period is too long. Only if the poll figures are utilized properly and stated clearly when releasing, 2 to 3 days should be enough for the cool-down period, taking the characteristics of Taiwan society into account. How do the political parties and public utilize the poll result at the final stage should not be relevant to the independent operation of the poll.

Thirdly, the international vision of the society. In 1996 and 2002, the World Association for Public Opinion Research conducted 2 worldwide surveys and discovered that, among the 66 countries which have been covered in the survey in 2002, 36 of them (i.e. nearly 55%) posed no restrictions to the election polls. Among them, South Africa banned the 42-day restriction period completely while Indonesia abolished its 21-day restriction period. For those countries where restrictions still existed, many have shortened their restriction periods between the 2 surveys. For example, France has shortened its period from 7 days to 1 day, Portugal from 7 days to 1 day, Poland from 12 days to 1 day, Turkey from 30 days to 7 days, Canada from 3 days to 2 days, etc. For a society which claims to be free and democratic, should it also make reference to the international society's development and argument in this field?

Fourthly, the development of the Chinese democratic society. Hong Kong is a society valuing freedom and rule of law. While its democratic development is still in the primary stage, its freedom in the release of poll result has surpassed Taiwan, as the former has no restriction to the pre-election polls. This is in line with the 36 countries in the above survey, including democratic countries like the UK, the USA, Germany, Japan, etc, and the author feels so proud of this. Macau is also the Chinese society, but its laws have banned anyone from releasing the election poll result 15 days before the Legislative Assembly election. Although its ex-sovereign state, Portugal, has already shortened the restriction period to 1 day, the Macau government has not followed the changes and seemingly it wants to differentiate itself clearly from Portugal. While there is no large-scale democratic election in mainland China, it is definitely unnecessary to discuss the issues of public opinion polls. Therefore, in the Chinese societies like Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan and mainland China, whether Taiwan would like to be the role model of the Chinese democratic society depends, to a certain extent, on whether Taiwan will take one step forward to ban the election poll.

It is common for the candidates in Taiwan to make use of massive publicity materials, or quote or criticize the influence of the poll, so as to put the burden of defeat in elections to the pollsters either directly or indirectly. Together with the fact that problems do exist in the election polls in Taiwan, if the government wants to introduce further restrictions to the release of election poll, it should not have too much opposition. However, the author still hopes that, while the system of institutional democracy is developing in Taiwan society, the supporting software will not be neglected. Impartial and free media, independent intellectuals and credible pollsters are all indispensable components in a democratic society. This is the same in both Taiwan and Hong Kong.