The Impact of Concurrent Campaigns on Referendum Voting

• In Event: One Election, Multiple Approaches: The Case of Taiwan

Abstract

Conventional wisdom suggests that holding concurrent elections would reduce costs, on the one hand, and increase turnout, on the other hand. It has also been argued that, however, concurrent elections might affect the considerations involved in voting decisions. This is especially true when one of the concurrent elections is placed at lower order than others. In this article, we focus on concurrent elections where one of which is a referendum and the other is a mayoral election. We argue that, when a referendum is scheduled concurrently with higher order elections, it would fail to serve its main purpose, that is, providing opportunities for voters to express their preferences over specific issues in the context of representative democracy. Instead, not only participation in a referendum but also the voting decisions to the referendum questions are influenced by considerations relevant to the higher order election. Based on this logic, we propose hypotheses in the context of the 2018 election in Taiwan and test them against two datasets for the mayoral election in Taichung City. From the results of data analysis, we find that voters who like incumbent Mayor Lin Chia-lung are less likely to vote in the referendum question initiated by the challenger Lu Shiow-yen. Furthermore, voters who are unsatisfied with President Tsai are more likely to approve the referendum question and the supporters of the ruling DPP are more likely to disapprove the referendum question. These results underscore a critical insight: in the context of concurrent elections, referendums may transform into tools for expressing broader political sentiments, such as approval or disapproval of political figures associated with the referendums, rather than focusing on the specific issues at hand. This phenomenon raises important questions about the efficacy of referendums as a mechanism for issue-based democratic decision-making in the context of concurrent elections. The study also contributes to a deeper understanding of electoral dynamics and voter behavior.

Authors

• Ting-wei Weng, University of Houston

• Tsung-han Tsai, Academia Sinica

• Ying-lung Chou, Tamkang University

• Ching-hsin Yu, National Chengchi University