This was almost nearly a 7% difference between registered/anonymous users, but the reason for this huge difference was the rallying for Cloud. Based on the percentage of registered user votes after 12 hours into the match, we were on pace to finish around 46.75% registered users. This allowed me to estimate that there were about 800 rallied votes, with an estimated split of 600 for Cloud and 200 for Mario. There were some rallies for Mario, the most successful one being on the Mario subreddit where the topic did manage to reach the number 1 spot at one point.
Without any rallying, Mario probably would have won by about 250 votes and finished with about 50.50% on Cloud. The results at the 12 hour mark had Mario with 51.91% with registered users and 46.63% with anonymous users, which is only around a 5% difference instead.
Does your projection of how many registered voters we would have finished at, take into account that the first half of the match probably has more registered users?
I think maybe not many have talked about Cloud rallying, is that the entire notion of FF7 rallying past freakin Mario is so absurd that it hasnt sunk in yet.
Though I think a lot of it would be a lack of rallying for Mario, as the people that would normally rally him probably saw him as the villain this time.