To make the WordPress plugin “Popularity Contest” start from the beginning, deactivate the plugin and empty the table wp_ak_popularity with the following SQL-Statement:

TRUNCATE TABLE `wp_ak_popularity`

Then, reactivate the plugin.

If you want to reset the WordPress plugin “WP-PostViews” to make it count from scratch, deactivate the plugin, then use

UPDATE `wp_postmeta` SET meta_value = 0 WHERE meta_key = "views"

Then, reactivate the plugin.

(”wp_” is the default table prefix for WordPress, which might be different in your installation.)

I decided to do this because I recently upgraded my WordPress installation.