Combined approval voting

<< Approval methods

Combined approval voting (CAV) is one of many approval methods where each voter may express approval, disapproval, or indifference toward each candidate. The term "combined approval voting (CAV)" was originally introduced by Dan Felsenthal in 1989. In Felsenthal's 1989 paper, "the outcome of a CAV [election] is the candidate with the largest net vote total (algebraic sum of votes in favor and votes against)", but other tabulation algorithms are discussed on English Wikipedia (in the combined approval voting article).

When tabulated as described, CAV is a cardinal system. It was a variation on a system called disapproval voting.

Other names for the system:


 * "balanced approval voting (BAV)"
 * "approval with abstention option" (AWAO),
 * "true weight voting" (TWV1),
 * "evaluative voting (EV)" (though the latter can also be used for variants with more than 3 values.)
 * "net approval voting"  (though this term has a different definition in the context of approval-based committee selection).

The introduction to this article was originally copied from English Wikipedia on November 26, 2020.