Psephology (Derived from Greek word, psephos means – ‘pebble’) is a branch of political science, the quantitative analysis of elections and balloting. As such, psephology attempts to scientifically explicate elections. Psephology is related to political forecasting.
Pebbles were used by the ancient Greeks in voting. Similarly, the word ballot was an excellent choice for a means of voting since it is derived from balla, the Italian word for “ball,” and Italians placed balls in a container to cast votes.
Further details
The study of psephology cannot be carried out the same way in every society. The methods used in the West must be different from those used in India, thus a voting model must be constructed which is based on the voting behavior suitable to the particular country or area being studied.
In general, it is opined among psephologists that, the oting intentions in India are volatile, whereas in a country like the UK the voting intentions are relatively stable. Thus India cannot be dependent on the collection of data of all the past years of a large group in order to understand the trends and they will differ even within constituencies. Thus study here is conducted across various states and regions in smaller groups to get better results.