Votable node content type in D7 I'm trying to figure out the best way of creating a content type that allows for creating nodes that can be assigned to a group and can be voted for in competition with the other nodes in that group. I started writing a module for it by using the Fields API, Node API and Voting API but I want to check to see if I can use an existing module to do this before I get too far into the project.

For example, I want to create a content type called "contestant" and give the content type 3 different brackets it can be assigned to. Then when I create the contestent content and select one of those brackets, the content becomes votable and is ranked against other pieces of content within that bracket.

Any references to existing modules or suggestions would be awesome.
I'm not sure I totally follow what you're trying to achieve, but Fivestar is a very flexible module

https://drupal.org/project/fivestar

I use it to vote for a few different content "dimensions" (2-3 votable fields) and then with views you can output it as a table with click sorting by any one of the ratings fields.