Is there any way that I can simplify my code using a loop. in Visual Basic

Question

I have a program that looks at votes entered for candidates and determines the winner by who has the lowest score. Because the user enters their preferences from 1 to 5 with 1 being the favorite and 5 being the least favorite. If there is a draw the candidate with the most 1's win, if this is still a draw then its the candidate with the most 2's. I have a program but want to know if I can simplify it before I continue to repeat the code to check who got the most 2's ect. This is what I have so far.

    If candidate1 < candidate2 And candidate1 < candidate3 And candidate1 < candidate4 And candidate1 < candidate5 Then
        MsgBox("The winner is" & LblCand1.Text)
    ElseIf candidate2 < candidate1 And candidate2 < candidate3 And candidate2 < candidate4 And candidate2 < candidate5 Then
        MsgBox("The winner is" & lblCand2.Text)
    ElseIf candidate3 < candidate2 And candidate3 < candidate1 And candidate3 < candidate4 And candidate3 < candidate5 Then
        MsgBox("The winner is" & lblCand3.Text)
    ElseIf candidate4 < candidate2 And candidate4 < candidate3 And candidate4 < candidate1 And candidate4 < candidate5 Then
        MsgBox("The winner is" & lblCand4.Text)
    ElseIf candidate5 < candidate2 And candidate5 < candidate3 And candidate5 < candidate4 And candidate5 < candidate1 Then
        MsgBox("The winner is" & lblCand5.Text)
    ElseIf C1V1s > C2V1s And C1V1s > C3V1s And C1V1s > C4V1s And C1V1s > C5V1s Then
        MsgBox("The winner is" & LblCand1.Text)
    ElseIf C2V1s > C1V1s And C2V1s > C3V1s And C2V1s > C4V1s And C2V1s > C5V1s Then
        MsgBox("The winner is" & lblCand2.Text)
    ElseIf C3V1s > C1V1s And C3V1s > C2V1s And C3V1s > C4V1s And C3V1s > C5V1s Then
        MsgBox("The winner is" & lblCand3.Text)
    ElseIf C4V1s > C1V1s And C4V1s > C2V1s And C4V1s > C3V1s And C4V1s > C5V1s Then
        MsgBox("The winner is" & lblCand4.Text)
    ElseIf C5V1s > C1V1s And C5V1s > C2V1s And C5V1s > C3V1s And C5V1s > C4V1s Then
        MsgBox("The winner is" & lblCand5.Text)
    End If

Answer 1

I would recommend that you create a class Candidate which contains a score and a name for each candidate:

Class Candidate
    Implements IComparable(Of Candidate)

    Public Property Score As Integer
    Public Property Name As String

    Public Function CompareTo(other As Candidate) As Integer Implements IComparable(Of Candidate).CompareTo
        If (other.Score > Me.Score) Then
            Return -1
        ElseIf (other.Score = Me.Score) Then
            Return 0
        Else
            Return 1
        End If
    End Function
End Class

Then, if you have a collection of your candidate instances, you can do the following:

Dim myCandidates As New List(Of Candidate)
'fill your list with instances somehow...
MsgBox(String.Format("The winner is {0}", myCandidates.Min().Name))

Note that the Candidate class has to implement the IComparable(Of T) interface so the instances know how to compare themselves from the Min() method.