A vote, what does it mean?

This is the part about voting I dislike. To make it straightforward and simple to tabulate the republic's votes, the entries are just a list of names or name sets. That is the vote. There is not an additional set of questions for additional information. It is just that. But, the media, and people we most hear from vocally on social media, read beyond to assert, this is a mandate for x, or this means y.

Political commentators debate what a vote meant, you can conduct polling, but scientifically, if they want the real data, they need to ask the voters exactly what was their intent? Was it a party-line vote, was it for policy x or y, was it a character assessment of the candidates, or was it an endorsement or objection to past behavior, was it their fitness for command of the military, or their views on social issues, was it their economic plan, their views on trade agreements and working with other nations, was it the their cabinet, their views on issues? or was it based on their list of accomplishments? There is no way to know for sure without allowing an essay portion of the ballot. In reality each voter used their own (hopefully) multi-objective function to assess the list of names presented and choose the one they wanted to see in office (for local candidates).

Know what you know, which is the count of the votes. But asserting that the vote means this or that perverts the intent of the voter into possibly a media or political agenda. It does not mean a mandate for x or y or a disapproval of z. It simply was the multiple choice box selected from among the options, nothing more.

This is not meant to justify x or y behavior, this is to say, you are entitled to your belief but if you read more into it you are guessing as you don't have the metrics to back it up. Arm waving is not science. I'm not sure political science is science if this estimating/theoretical phase is the outcome. For political science to truly test it's hypotheses, it needs to run the numbers and ask the questions on the ballot and get the full data.

The problem would be, is that list another multiple choice, or an essay. For completeness sake, to describe the thought process and weighting of variables, it would need to be an essay response.

It's also wrong to thrown this name selection, the vote, into a group demographic. As it is a multi-objective function, there is not a cohesive set of weightings to everyone's selection process. What one person weights higher, another may give a lower weighting. The only assertion that can be made is the output. Again, asserting that all of a certain group is incorrect (there may be correlations, but probably not 100% in-line with the data). All of a demographic does not vote the same way. To assert that is true is labelling and leads to stereotyping.

So please don't spin the meaning of anyone's vote, or take it as a mandate for x. It belittles the process and everyone's statement. It usurps what they actually said, a name, for for than it actually is. If you interpret it differently you are likely to be incorrect. And you're just adding to the plethora of disinformation everyone is forced to sift through.