The votes are in. The polls are closed. What has Zeaot decided? In the interests of fairness I will publish all information which I think might be useful. First, a complete list of all votes (one person per line):

5431276
2431657
5634127
1423567
1243567
2431567
3412567
1532467
1237564
1243567
1234567
5123467
3124567
3125476
1324567
4231657
1234567
1243657
3217456
3217564
1234567
4132765
3216574
6123475
2463157
2456137
5674321
1243657
2431567
5614327
5126734
1234567
2341756
1234567
6513427
4231567
1234567
1234567
6423175
2431657
1234567
6152437
4213765
2341576
1523467
7561234

If you go back and read the how-to-vote information what this means will be apparent.

To calculate the winner I used an Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) method. There are some mathematical flaws with IRV, but it has a rather simple algorithm and when you are not encountering one of its flaws it gives better results than Plurality (hint: plurality is what American political elections use).

IRV information is easily found via Google, but briefly for the lazy: I compared all first-order choices and found the one which was desired first least. I removed this option from consideration, and moved up second-tier choices to fill any gaps, and then third to fill those gaps, and so on. This is, by the way, why you were required to voice an opinion on all 7 options by ranking all 7. Eventually this brings us down to 2 options remaining, and then one. And that one is the winner.

To assist me in my calculations, to assure I made no mistakes, and to produce a niftier log of the process, I wrote a small script. Here is its actual output when fed the above data:

Tier 1 results:
        1: 17
        2: 8
        3: 6
        4: 4
        5: 6
        6: 4
        7: 1
        Loser: 7 with 1. Option 7 disqualified.
Eliminating option 7... Done.
Tier 2 results:
        1: 17
        2: 8
        3: 6
        4: 4
        5: 7
        6: 4
        7: na
        Loser: 4, 6 with 4, 4. Tiebreaking...
                Comparing previous losers on next tier...
                4: 10
                6: 4
                Loser for next tier: 6 with 4. Option 6 disqualified.
Eliminating option 6... Done.
Tier 3 results:
        1: 19
        2: 8
        3: 6
        4: 5
        5: 8
        6: na
        7: na
        Loser: 4 with 5. Option 4 disqualified.
Eliminating option 4... Done.
Tier 4 results:
        1: 20
        2: 12
        3: 6
        4: na
        5: 8
        6: na
        7: na
        Loser: 3 with 6. Option 3 disqualified.
Eliminating option 3... Done.
Tier 5 results:
        1: 23
        2: 15
        3: na
        4: na
        5: 8
        6: na
        7: na
        Loser: 5 with 8. Option 5 disqualified.
Eliminating option 5... Done.
Tier 6 results:
        1: 30
        2: 16
        3: na
        4: na
        5: na
        6: na
        7: na
        Loser: 2 with 16. Option 2 disqualified.
Eliminating option 2... Done.

Winner is: 1

So there you have it, the winner is option 1. If you refer back to the options, you'll find this means that nothing changes. Democracy hs spoken.

And now for some statistics, 'cause everybody loves 'em, and it makes voting more fun.

• Don't bother to count, there were 46 voters.
• Fully 36.9% of the voters preferred option 1 most of all.
• In the final contest between option 1 and option 2, option 1 won with 65.2% of the vote.
• If Coombs voting had been used (Coombs is a variant on IRV) then option 1 would still clearly have won (I don't have the numbers, you can calculate it yourself).