Condorcet method
If there are no more than 5 candidates ( or a larger number of candidates is short-listed to 5) then the amount of effort counting ballots could be reduced to normal acceptable levels by asking voters to select an order of preference from a predetermined list of the possibilities. This would mean that the ballots would just require to be counted once to determine the number of votes cast for each order of preference. The results would then be entered into a simple spreadsheet which would determine the Condorcet winner. For example where there are candidates A, B and C, there are six orders of preference, so voters could be asked to choose which of the six they wish to vote for. Counting would then be simply a matter of counting how votes were cast for each order of preference. The results could then be applied to a simple spreadsheet which revealed the Condorcet winner. If there were four candidates (options) then there would be 24 orders of preference; if there were five candidates then there would be 120 orders of preference and so on.