Please help, I need someone who is better at math than I am!

It is late and I don't want to try to run numbers , but it does seem like Ridley came in second to Hartford. Why else would they combine the numbers for Ridley and Dorset?
ETA - I don't think you can get actual numbers from all this. It says 55% did not want to move to Dorset but you can't tell if that includes people who voted for Harford. I think they went with the city that most people would not mind moving to, even if harford got the most votes for #1. Ridley seemed to be the most popular alternative choice of the three since 91% of those who voted for harford and Dorset picked Ridley as their second choice.

Isn't the answer 42?

Here's how I see it......

We know 58 chose Harford 1st.
We know 80 chose Ridley 2nd (66% of 120 chose it if their 1st choice didn't eventuate, so they would have put it 2nd)
We know 66 chose Dorset 3rd (55% of 120 didn't want to go to Dorset, so they would have put it 3rd)

We know that of the 58 people who put Harford 1st, 53 put Ridley 2nd.  So that means 27 people put Dorset 1st. That's because we know 80 people overall put Ridley 2nd, and 53 of them put Harford 1st.  Obviously We know that no-one who put Ridley 2nd also put it 1st, so the remaining 27 must have put Dorset 1st.

So now we have:
                    1st.              2nd.              3rd
Harford.         58.               
Ridley.                               80
Dorset.           27                                     66

Each of the rows and columns must add up to 120,  so looking at the lines,  27 put Dorset 1st,  66 put it 3rd, so 27 put it 2nd.  So now we have:
                1st.    2nd.    3rd
Harford.     58.
Ridley.                 80
Dorset.       27     27       66

From here it's just a matter at looking at a row or column that had 2 numbers and working out the 3rd (remember they must all add up to 120)
so:  
                1st.     2nd    3rd
Harford.     58.      13     49
Ridley.        35       80.      5
Dorset.       27       27.    66

So yes, more people voted for Harford as first choice, but far more voted for Ridley as 2nd choice.
Where you are asked to rank choices rather than just selecting one of them, then there is usually a weighting amount given to each choice, as CraftyKitten said.  And that is no doubt how Ridley comes out on top.

if it is 3 points for 1st, 2 points for 2nd, 1 point for 3rd, then the result would be;
Ridley 270 points
Harford 259 points
Dorset. 201 points


(Man I hope this posts with the format intact, or I have some serious editing to do!)

ETA:-  phew, it did keep the formatting!

Edit 2:  Bugger. I just re-read the OP, and it says 12% chose Ridley as their 3rd option.  That is 14 people, and my result shows only 5.
well, it's bed-time now, and I have spent quite long enough on this, so I am going to bed, and let someone else correct my mistake(s).   If I have nightmares about moving to Harford, Ridley or Dorset, it's all AussieMeg's fault!!  😜

I thought it could be done, but as I work through it some of the information seems to be contradictory. Either some of it is wrong, or some people didn't rank all three choices (is that what they mean by 55% did not want to move to Dorset?)

If I ignore this bit of info, which is the one bit I can't reconcile to everything else:



and I assume that all the votes were used, I get this (all in numbers of people) -

Ridley 1st 27; 2nd 79; 3rd 14
Harford 1st 58; 2nd 22; 3rd 40
Dorset 1st 35; 2nd 19; 3rd 66

If you use a simple weighted ranking where 1st place is worth 3 'points, 2nd is 2 and 3rd is 1, the ranked scores would be Harford 258, Ridley 253 and Dorset 209 each, so that can't be what they've used.

On the other hand, if you ignore the 3rd choices and look at just the top two, Ridley comes out top either on a weighted basis or even just on straight numbers (106 people picked Ridley as one of their top two versus only 80 people for Harford)

No guarantees any of that is correct of course, given the discrepancy I mentioned.

ETA corrected for some people I lost! 

Very true, but it's been my first day back at work after being off sick, and I am exhausted!

I followed much the same logic as KiwiJo , but in a slightly different order.

Things we know: 
We know 58 chose Harford 1st.
We know 66 chose Dorset 3rd (55% of 120 didn't want to go to Dorset, so they would have put it 3rd)
We know 14 people chose Ridley 3rd (12% of 120)
We know 79 people chose Ridley 2nd (66% of 120) 

So now we have:



Each of the rows and columns must add up to 120, so looking at the columns, 14 put Ridley 3rd, 66 put Dorset 3rd, so 40 must have put Harford 3rd. So now we have:


Then we can see that 58 people put Harford 1st and 40 people put it 3rd, so 22 people must have put it 2nd: 


Then we know that 79 people put Ridley 2nd and 14 people put it 3rd, so 27 people must have put it 1st.


From here it's just a matter at looking at the remaining columns with 2 numbers and working out the 3rd (remember they must all add up to 120)


(Totally plagiarised from KiwiJo - couldn't be bothered to type it all out before!!) 

The fact that we come out with different results I think pretty much proves that the original info is incorrect in some respect. 

My brain hurts just looking at that LOL. I have no idea of the numbers but I'm really sorry you are going to have to move and have a much longer commute.

KiwiJo if my numbers are correct 35 people put Dorset 1st. If 91% of them had Ridley second, that would be 32 as you say. We already know that 53 other people put Ridley second (the ones that had Harford first) which would be a total of 85 with Ridley second. That's too many - however you round it it's more than 66%, and would throw the rest off too.

Yes!  Another 2 way (or is it 3 way? - LOL) table!

I might have to steal this for my students next year.  Won't need it until third Trimester tho so we won't be able to help ya out on this one.

No parking for 120 employees?? WTH??