A quick response to Michael's blog about the sudden shutdown of Global Views' (遠見) poll center. I don't have time to gather references like I usually did, so bare with me.
The following is some background info that might be helpful to understand the context behind what's going on:
1. Back in 2000 when there were 3-way campaign for the president: KMT Lien (連戰), PFP Soong (宋楚瑜), and DPP Chen (陳水扁) -- that is, 2 blue and 1 green, Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), then Lien's campaign manager(?), announced a poll result right before the voting day, saying that Lien already won over Soong in polls by a large margin, asking blue supporters to focus their votes on Lien but not waste it on Soong.
The election result was that Soong lost to Chen by only a small margin, but Lien's votes were barely half of Soong's, making Chen the president. If Ma didn't announce that poll to tell people Lien already won huge in polls, most likely Soong would have taken more votes than Chen did, and the blue would never have lost the government to the green.
That is, Ma is not only the critical reason for Soong to lose the president race in 2000, he is also the grandfather of "fabricating polls."
Because of Ma's behavior, Taiwan passed a law to forbid poll announcements one week before any election.
2. Starting from May this year, the numbers of polls conducted by pro-KMT media were abnormally high. They run like a poll every two or three days. It feels like that the entire news field is flooded with polls intentionally;
3. The poll center of the Global Views was established by the director Mr. Dai (戴立安) several years ago. GV's polls is considered somewhat more neutral and objective in Taiwan;
4. Every poll has to be weighted based on the distribution of gender, age, etc. The GV used to publish the weighted polls. But starting from May this year, they started publishing only rough data (which always show Ma won), and hide the weighted result behind a pay program. Users have to pay to peek into the real result. The GV warned to sue anyone who publishes the real result;
5. According to words accidentally slipped out of people's mouth, DPP's candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) probably (note: I put this word to protect myself) won over Ma by a margin of ~7% in the GV's real result. This result is very different from ALL OTHER pro-KMT polls (they all say Ma won; some polls say Ma won by more than 10%);
6. Not long ago, the GV announced that they will put more effort to bring the race to the people by conducting more more reliable polls on the president race, starting from October;
7. Then suddenly, without any sign, the GV shuts down their political poll center. Mr. Dai (戴立安) resigned, giving up the entire polling model he established and maintained. Some sources said he might be forced to leave;
8. In an interview, Dai said that Tsai won Ma by 4~6%;
So, now, here we are. Now all those pro-KMT polls can publish any result they want -- just like Ma Ying-jeou the Grandfather of False Polls did in 2000 -- without any other poll standing in their way.
#1. Global Views Shuts Down Polling! =UPDATED=
http://michaelturton.blogspot.com/2011/10/global-views-shuts-down-polling.html
The following is some background info that might be helpful to understand the context behind what's going on:
1. Back in 2000 when there were 3-way campaign for the president: KMT Lien (連戰), PFP Soong (宋楚瑜), and DPP Chen (陳水扁) -- that is, 2 blue and 1 green, Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), then Lien's campaign manager(?), announced a poll result right before the voting day, saying that Lien already won over Soong in polls by a large margin, asking blue supporters to focus their votes on Lien but not waste it on Soong.
The election result was that Soong lost to Chen by only a small margin, but Lien's votes were barely half of Soong's, making Chen the president. If Ma didn't announce that poll to tell people Lien already won huge in polls, most likely Soong would have taken more votes than Chen did, and the blue would never have lost the government to the green.
That is, Ma is not only the critical reason for Soong to lose the president race in 2000, he is also the grandfather of "fabricating polls."
Because of Ma's behavior, Taiwan passed a law to forbid poll announcements one week before any election.
2. Starting from May this year, the numbers of polls conducted by pro-KMT media were abnormally high. They run like a poll every two or three days. It feels like that the entire news field is flooded with polls intentionally;
3. The poll center of the Global Views was established by the director Mr. Dai (戴立安) several years ago. GV's polls is considered somewhat more neutral and objective in Taiwan;
4. Every poll has to be weighted based on the distribution of gender, age, etc. The GV used to publish the weighted polls. But starting from May this year, they started publishing only rough data (which always show Ma won), and hide the weighted result behind a pay program. Users have to pay to peek into the real result. The GV warned to sue anyone who publishes the real result;
5. According to words accidentally slipped out of people's mouth, DPP's candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) probably (note: I put this word to protect myself) won over Ma by a margin of ~7% in the GV's real result. This result is very different from ALL OTHER pro-KMT polls (they all say Ma won; some polls say Ma won by more than 10%);
6. Not long ago, the GV announced that they will put more effort to bring the race to the people by conducting more more reliable polls on the president race, starting from October;
7. Then suddenly, without any sign, the GV shuts down their political poll center. Mr. Dai (戴立安) resigned, giving up the entire polling model he established and maintained. Some sources said he might be forced to leave;
8. In an interview, Dai said that Tsai won Ma by 4~6%;
So, now, here we are. Now all those pro-KMT polls can publish any result they want -- just like Ma Ying-jeou the Grandfather of False Polls did in 2000 -- without any other poll standing in their way.
#1. Global Views Shuts Down Polling! =UPDATED=
http://michaelturton.blogspot.com/2011/10/global-views-shuts-down-polling.html
