For each candidate, each voter expresses the utility of that candidate's election to them in the form of a number. In "pure" range voting, each voter may give any candidate any real number, but as the potential for tactical voting is huge, most systems use some bounds. For example, each voter might give a real number between -1 and 1, or an integer between 1 and 10.

Range voting with each vote either zero or one is equivalent to approval and disapproval voting.

Counting the Votes

The scores for each candidate are summed, and the candidates with the highest sums are declared the winners.

Another method of counting is to find the median score of each candidate, and elect the candidate with the highest median score.

Strategy

In general, the correct strategy for range voting is to vote it identically to approval voting, so that all candidates are given either the maximum score or the minimum score. For more detailed strategies, see approval voting.