You can use concept from relational algebra. limit 1
does not give good result when more than one user have the same number of votes.
On PostgreSQL:
with t as (select name, count(*) c from voters group by name)
SELECT t.* from t
except
SELECT t.* from t JOIN t t2 ON t2.c > t.c
Example on SQL Fiddle
And sample data to prove this works:
create table voters (name int,vote int);
insert into voters values (1,1);
insert into voters values (1,1);
insert into voters values (1,1);
insert into voters values (1,1);
insert into voters values (1,1);
insert into voters values (1,1);
insert into voters values (1,1);
insert into voters values (1,1);
insert into voters values (2,1);
insert into voters values (2,1);
insert into voters values (2,1);
insert into voters values (2,1);
insert into voters values (2,1);
insert into voters values (2,1);
insert into voters values (2,1);
insert into voters values (2,1);
insert into voters values (2,1);
insert into voters values (3,1);
insert into voters values (3,1);
insert into voters values (3,1);
insert into voters values (3,1);
insert into voters values (3,1);
insert into voters values (3,1);
insert into voters values (3,1);
insert into voters values (3,1);
insert into voters values (3,1);
insert into voters values (4,1);
insert into voters values (4,1);
insert into voters values (4,1);
insert into voters values (4,1);
insert into voters values (4,1);
insert into voters values (5,1);
insert into voters values (5,1);
insert into voters values (5,1);
insert into voters values (5,1);
My solution is based on answer to this question: How can I find MAX with relational algebra?
There is also good explanation of this concept in another answer here Aggregate Relational Algebra (Maximum)