The most common and most likely answer to this crossword clue is the 4 plus 4 letter word EXIT POLL
I've seen this crossword clue in The Daily Telegraph
E
X
I
T
P
O
L
L
More clues leading to the result EXIT POLL
- Is it going to suggest voting results?
- Way-out method of predicting elections?
- Former head admitting it's an indicative survey
- Indicator of who’ll get in league after mad exploit
- People facing way-out questions during an election
- Leave head early indicator of result?
- Exploit amazingly large survey of those who have voted
- Sex show about Liberals — it predicts the X-rating
- Exploit amazingly large survey
- Exploit unusually large survey of voters
Buddy explains!
The straight part
We know that "study of voting trends" is the straight/definition part of the clue. The straight part is often a synonym or definition, in this case study of voting trends = exit poll.The cryptic/wordplay part
In cryptic crossword there's often an wordplay/cryptic part as well.This part involves a more complex hint, such as an anagram, homophone, hidden word, etc.
Sadly, We don't have an explanation for this specific crossword clue yet.