The science of understanding voting patterns is a complex field that involves analyzing individual and social factors that influence how people decide to vote. Here are some key points from the search results:

• Voting behavior: This refers to how people decide how to vote, and it is shaped by a complex interplay between an individual voters attitudes as well as social factors. Voter attitudes include personal and social biases, deeply held beliefs, and psychological factors such as personality, memory, and emotions.

• Models of voter behavior: Political scientists have defined several models of voter behavior in an attempt to explain the different motivations of voters. For example, rational choice theory describes someone voting in their best interest, supporting the candidate whose platform will give them the most favorable outcomes. Retrospective voting describes voting based on the recent record in office of a candidate or others in their party.

• Sources of individual voting behavior: One concern in the study of electoral behavior is explaining the election result by identifying the sources of individual voting behavior. Social factors such as race, religion, region, and social class appear to be the characteristics that have most closely related to voting over the past several decades.

• Changes in voting patterns over time: Another major concern in voting research emphasizes changes in voting patterns over time, usually with an attempt to determine what the election results tell us about the direction in which American politics is moving.

• Psephology: This is the scientific study of elections, and it involves analyzing past elections and voting trends to predict future outcomes. Psephologists can study and understand elections in different social contexts.

Overall, the science of understanding voting patterns involves analyzing a wide range of factors that influence how people decide to vote, including individual attitudes and social factors, as well as changes in voting patterns over time. Psephology is a related field that focuses on predicting election outcomes by analyzing past elections and voting trends.