The
study of
elections,
polling,
patterns of
voting, and
forecasting elections. This
field became popular with
sociologists after
public opinion polls, accessibility of
census data for small/
rural/isolated areas, and more complex
modelling software all became available.
This area of study overlaps into several disciplines. Most obvious are sociology and political science but recently (possibly because of the attention generated by the chaotic presidential election of 2000) it has branched out into other fields of study including economics, international business, and cultural anthropology.