The Spatial Factors in Electoral Studies: The Example of Presidential Elections in Taiwan

The author tries to apply the methods of spatial analysis into the studies of election campaign with the purpose of identifying the influence of spatial factors. After making a short introduction of the meaning of spatial analysis and the techniques of this research approach, the author takes the three presidential elections held in Taiwan from 1996 to 2004 as example. The methods used in this study include geographical visualization, exploratory spatial data analysis and spatial modeling. The author finds that the voting results show a high degree of spatial stability, although the party supports in each election was changing. In the spatial regression analysis, the author finds there are both spatial heterogeneity and autocorrelation existed which makes error violates the assumption of OLS regression.