Luo Dayou stirs up provincial sentiments Scholar Du Shengcong: Ethnic cards cannot be calculated in mathematics

Veteran singer Luo Dayou said on the radio program: "People from other provinces have been bullied badly enough. If the vote does not come out this time, it will really be over." Actor Chen Muyi replied: "Taiwanese people have been putting up with 'you people' for 77 years." One after another, the community became quarrelsome. Du Shengcong, a communication scholar at Ming Chuan University, believes that, despite the controversy, the votes will be counted on the night of November 28. "If we put this ethnic group card on the Taipei ballot paper and try it, I'm afraid the result will be different from what the card players thought."

How many "out-of-province tickets" are there in Taipei? Du Shengcong mentioned that based on official figures, Taipei City's population at the end of May this year was 2,427,533. Applying the proportion of electors accounting for 82.2% of the population in 2022, it is estimated that there will be approximately 2 million electors this term. If voters whose fathers are from other provinces account for 18% to 22%, that is about 360,000 to 440,000 people. This is the upper limit in terms of blood. However, the number of identity is much smaller. There are only about 150,000 to 180,000 voters in Taipei who would "self-identify as being from other provinces."

He analyzed that the identity of people from other provinces must be highlighted before they can play a role. However, after three or four generations of intermarriage, many voters in Taipei have ancestry from other provinces, southern Fujian, and Hakka at the same time. Furthermore, if the iron ticket continues to push, the marginal benefit will be limited. People who will be moved by "people from other provinces being bullied" are probably the most stable votes in the blue camp. Using numerical calculations, it is estimated that there are 400,000 voters from other provinces and a turnout rate of 75%. About 300,000 people will go out to vote. Assuming that 75% of them originally voted blue, about 225,000 votes are already in their pockets. Even if Luo Dayou increases the voting rate of this group of people by another 2 percentage points, there will only be 8,000 more people voting. According to the same proportion, Jiang Wanan’s net increase was about 4,000 votes.

But it may be the opponents who are woken up, because ethnic mobilization has counterproductive effects. Using the same numerical calculation, there are about 1.6 million voters with non-provincial backgrounds. As long as 0.5% of them are provoked and go out to vote, it will be 8,000 votes. Assuming 70% of the vote goes to Shen Boyang, the net impact on Jiang Wanan is about 3,200 votes. The pros and cons were offset, and Luo Dayou's 4,000 votes for Jiang Wanandola was reduced to only about 800 votes. But the real battleground in this year’s Taipei mayoral election is the 342,141 votes cast for Huang Shanshan in 2022.

He believes that in Taipei, the net benefit of the ethnic group card is close to zero. This card is not cost-effective no matter how you calculate it.