在臺灣各項選舉的民意調查中，不少受訪者在被問及政黨認同時，選擇隱藏自己的政黨傾向。雖然他們宣稱自己是「中間選民」或「獨立選民」，但是在理論上他們很可能仍然是具有政黨傾向的選民。為什麼這些選民選擇不表態或隱藏政黨傾向？本文從電訪資料中找到具有政黨傾向卻宣稱為「中間選民」的受訪者之後，經過再接觸、深度訪談的方式，抽絲剝繭、探詢他們不表態的原因。我們發現，除了個人家庭和自身成長文化背景的影響外，其他重要的因素還包括了「保障個人自身安全避免與他人製造紛爭」及「避免造成社群人際關係緊張」等理由。這些發現除了呼應目前學術研究對密西根學派的補充觀點之外，深度訪談所得到的記錄，都值得關心「中間選民」的調查研究者及關心臺灣民主變遷及民主深化的有識之士進一步研究與探討。

A significant number of voters self-report in polls and surveys that they are ”independents” who do not lean toward any political party. There is no sufficient theoretical base, however, to believe that they are pure independents. By proving that, we find some of such voters who claim to be independent but behave in a partisan manner, such as voting consistently for a party and/or consistently favoring a political talk show, but then, for reasons of hiding partisan orientation in polls and surveys, are interviewed. We find that, besides their family history that influences their attitudes towards revealing their partisanship publicly, social expectation and conflict avoidance are two important reasons of not revealing party identification. We discuss the findings and implications which are important to understand ”independents” in Taiwan.