目前台灣社會對於原住民選舉政治的認識與理解，非常仰賴以深度訪談、民族誌等方法，甚至偏向強調「應然面」的規範性研究。這些研究豐富了我們對於原住民選舉行為的認識，但不同訪談對象與研究個案，加上詮釋角度的差異，雖然可以從不同觀點來理解原住民選舉政治，卻難以建立通則性解釋。本文作為國內學界首篇以量化實證研究方法探討政黨形象和原住民投票抉擇之間關係的研究，有助於增進對原住民投票行為的認識，並為未來相關研究奠定理論基礎。研究結果顯示，即便控制政黨認同，政黨形象對原住民選民投票抉擇的影響依然顯著。換言之，概念上，政黨形象與政黨認同確實有所不同，而各自對選民投票抉擇產生不同程度的影響。當政黨形象評價方向和政黨認同一致時，投票抉擇趨向一致，而當選民無特定政黨偏好時，由於民進黨的正面政黨形象是「重視原住民且持續有進步，並勇於改變現狀的政黨，年輕人比較有機會」，相較於國民黨的保守封建，且正面形象又是侷限於選民對該黨過往溫和執政的肯定，民進黨較能夠抓住「求新求變的新鮮感」，而使中立選民傾向將選票投給民進黨。

Due to inherent difficulties of minority surveys, our understanding of indigenous election politics largely depends on qualitative studies. However, such studies usually lead to contradictory results because of different cases or interviewees. It is hard to develop a general explanation. This paper, as the very first one to study the relationship between party image and indigenous voting choice by implementing a quantitative method in Taiwan, can improve our understanding of indigenous voting behavior and lay a foundation for future relevant studies. The research results indicate that indigenous voting choice is influenced by party image. Party image affects voting choice significantly. Even under the condition of controlling party identification, the influence of party image on voting choice is still significant. In other words, party image is differs from party identification conceptually but both affect voting choice. This study found that when the direction of party image is the same as party identification, voting choice tends to be consistent with party image and party identification. However, for political neutrals, due to the fact that the DPP’s party image is “making progress, changing the status quo, and offering more opportunities to young people,” which is more attractive than the KMT’s party “conservative” image, they tend to vote DPP.