Voting is an inexact science. Humans are involved, and votes go different ways for a variety of explainable and unexplainable reasons.

We see this in local and national elections, where the public doesn’t always “get it right.” We see this at Gulf Coast Media in voting for Best for Baldwin, our friendly, community-building contest in which, occasionally, one or some of the 400 winners is not universally agreed upon.

And we saw this on CBS’s “Survivor 50” finale Wednesday night, where 11 jurors awarded Aubry Bracco the $2 million prize and title of Sole Survivor, defeating the Alabama Gulf Coast’s Jonathan Young in an 8-3 vote.

Aubry played a good game, a game bouncing back and forth between alliances, narrowly avoiding elimination and earning her way to end at the final immunity challenge. She’s a skilled player in her fourth season, a “brain” from her original season where tribes were split into “brains, brawn and beauty.”

Like many of the players on “Survivor 50,” Aubry went in being perceived as a strategic threat, and that played out throughout the season. But there was also some luck involved. If the season played out 100 times, some of the other strategic threats – Genevieve, Kamilla, Christian or Cirie, to name a few – may have found their way to the end, and they may have been awarded the same prize.

Jonathan, in contrast, played a game no one on the island – not ours – saw coming. An enormous, obviously physical threat entering in the season, his game evolved from the player we originally saw on “Survivor 42.” Jonathan’s game on 50 was also strategically and socially dominant. He had the game in his control more than any other player, at least among the final three.

He had the correct read, and made the correct moves, with about every other player, but they didn’t have the correct read on him.

The not-very-strategic perception of Jonathan entering the season allowed him to be underestimated, and if the season played out 100 times, Jonathan, in my estimation as a long-time viewer, would have made the final three more often than any other player.

But in this final three – with Jonathan, Aubry and Joe, who didn’t get any  final tribal council votes – Jonathan couldn’t escape the perception of who he previously was as a player.

Due to his size and physicality, it was hard for jurors to see Jonathan as an underdog, even strategically. Aubry was an easier sell as a “feel good story,” which played out at the final tribal council.

But it wasn’t this game of “Survivor" where Aubry’s feel-good story played out, but a compilation of her four seasons on the show. Also working in her favor was Cirie, the “Survivor” legend and friend of Aubry who has a similar player archetype as a physical underdog and strategic threat. Until the very end, Cirie didn’t see Jonathan’s strategic evolution and social game, and she had a large influence over several members of the jury.

I’m sure today, the day after his second-place finish, Jonathan has a few “what ifs” and thoughts about getting Aubry out earlier in the game. If he sits beside Joe and Rizo in the end, he probably wins. But in “Survivor 50” as a standalone season, Jonathan played the better game, and our hometown guy should have been awarded the $2 million prize.

But voters don’t always get it right, and the vote still stands. Regardless, the Alabama Gulf Coast is proud of our favorite “Survivor.”