From fish markets in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, to coffee shops in Chappaqua, New Yorkers made Tuesday’s election, like so many other things, all about themselves — their personal idiosyncrasies, their campaigns for social justice, their immigrant journeys and their settling of old political scores.

Eager to expound on a contest with opinions that until now nobody had really asked for, they described their preferences at the ballot box with a combination of New York know-it-allism, emotion and parochialism.

A Manhattan actor was eager to punish Bill Clinton for the sin of mocking Barack Obama eight years ago in South Carolina. (His choice: Bernie Sanders.) A retiree wanted to align herself with Ted Cruz because they shared so much. (“I’m Hispanic,” she explained. “I’m voting for Ted.”) An immigrant from Britain tried to single-handedly tug the Republican Party to the left with a vote for John Kasich.

“I’m not really a Republican,” the man, a 35-year-old screenwriter named Mayuran Tiruchelvam, confided as he explained his electoral calculations outside a polling site on West 101st Street. “I want to ensure that the least socially conservative candidate is the nominee.”