Opinion Poll of First-Time Voters

Opinion Poll of First-Time Voters

Source: United Daily News

December 29, 2011

Yesterday the First-time Voters’ National Policy Observation Team announced the results of its Presidential election opinion poll of 1,377 students over 18 years of age, including many first-time voters.  The poll showed that if the voting day were tomorrow, KMT Presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou would garner 21.4% of the vote, Tsai Ing-wen 18%, and James Soong 9.1%, with 34.5% declining to reveal their intentions.  The poll also indicated that 17% of the respondents did not intend to vote.

When asked which Presidential candidate valued first-time voters the most, 26.1% of the respondents supported DPP Tsai Ing-wen, 18.8% KMT Ma Ying-jeou, and 9% James Soong.  When asked which Presidential candidate best understood youth issues, 17.4% of the respondents supported DPP Tsai Ing-wen, 15.6% KMT Ma Ying-jeou, and 8.3% James Soong.

However, the poll indicated that none of the three Presidential candidates had proposed many concrete youth policies, thus failing to satisfy the youth because in answering the two above questions, “I’m unclear” was the response of 38% of the respondents to the former and 42% to the latter.

In addition, about finding a job and youth education, the survey showed that 77% of the respondents concluded that the government did not work hard enough to reduce the youth unemployment rate or improve the low salaries of the youth, and 71% of the respondents thought that the government had not worked hard enough to improve the unfair distribution of education resources over the past ten years.

73% of the respondents concluded that the government had not worked hard enough to create more job opportunities.  49% of the respondents did not agree that legalizing unpaid leave (furloughs) would protect the rights of the laborers. 71% of the respondents indicated that they thought the government did not provide enough assistance to help the youth start their own businesses.

The First-time Voters’ National Policy Observation Team had received 1,377 completed questionnaires, 97% of the respondents were university students or above, and 65% of the students were first-time voters in a Presidential election.

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