Help for simplifying code

[perfringo]

It seems to be counting so defaultdict could be an option:

>>> from collections import defaultdict
>>> c = defaultdict(int)
>>> rules = [1, 2, 3, 4, 2, 3, 5, 4]
>>> for rule in rules:
...     c[rule] += 1
...
>>> c
defaultdict(int, {1: 1, 2: 2, 3: 2, 4: 2, 5: 1})
>>> c[3]
2

Or Counter:

>>> from collections import Counter
>>> c = Counter(rules)
>>> c
Counter({1: 1, 2: 2, 3: 2, 4: 2, 5: 1})
>>> c[5] += 1
>>> c[5]
2

EDIT: regarding 2 code: elif will be never executed therefore redundant. First if catches all True conditions and there is nothing left for elif not to mention that somewhere must be loop from which to break out (not provided in code sample).