The goal of this paper is exploring why - despite the referenda and presidential election being jointly conducted - there is a huge gap between the turnout rates for the presidential election and referenda vote in Taiwan in 2004. After analyzing the 2004 TEDS presidential election survey data, the authors find that the determinants of whether to vote or not in the presidential election and referenda are different. For the presidential election, differential benefit and level of education are influential factors while political efficacy and mobilization are not. The authors suspect that the high turnout rate of the presidential election in Taiwan results from the relatively low cost of voting. For the referenda: differential benefit, political efficacy and mobilization are all influencing factors. On the other hand, the authors attempt to explore whether the difference between abstention and voting no forthose who do not want the referenda to pass - depends on their perception of the state of the world. The result is that this variable fails to explain the choice of voting no. The research findings infer that for those who do not want the referenda to pass, the choice of abstention and voting "no" does not make a difference.