Election program assignment

electiontime.rb

puts "Welcome to the best pet voting program."
puts "Pet candidates are: Dogs, Cats, Rodents ."
puts ""
puts "Which pet has your vote?"
puts ""

puts "Type in the species or use these shortcut letters for our friends with paws:"
puts "For Dogs, type: d"
puts "For Cats, type: c"
puts "For Rodents, type: r"
puts "For writing in your own animal type: o"
puts ""

writeins = {
  "dogs" => 0,
  "cats" => 0,
  "rodents" => 0,
}

(1..10).each do |countvote|
  print "Vote ##{countvote}: "
  vote = gets.chomp
  if vote == "d" || vote == "Dogs"
    writeins["dogs"] += 1
    puts "You voted for dogs, woof!"
  elsif vote == "c" || vote == "Cats"
    writeins["cats"] += 1
    puts "You voted for cats, meow!"
  elsif vote == "r" || vote == "Rodents"
    writeins["rodents"] += 1
    puts "You voted for rodents, squeak!"
  elsif vote == "o" || vote == "Other"
    other_animal = gets.chomp
    writeins[other_animal]
    if writeins.include? other_animal
      writeins[other_animal] += 1
    else
      writeins[other_animal] = 1
    end
  else
    puts "Not a pet person? Please vote again."
  end

end

puts "\n\nElection Results....\n"

puts "Vote Summary:"
writeins.each do |other_animal, votes|
  puts "#{other_animal} - #{votes} " + (votes > 1 ? "votes" : "vote")
end

puts ""
print "WINNER: "

mostvotes = 0
winner = nil
writeins.each do |animal, votes|
  if votes > mostvotes
    winner = animal
    mostvotes = votes
  end
end

puts "#{winner} is the winner!"

Just for your information
Since ruby version 1.9 there is a new syntax that can be used instead of 'hash rockets'. So instead of

writeins = {
  "dogs" => 0,
  "cats" => 0,
  "rodents" => 0,
}

It is a common practice to write:

writeins = {
  dogs: 0,
  cats: 0,
  rodents: 0,
}

You can address them as writeins[:cats]