  In this paper, we propose a family of approval voting-schemes for electing
committees based on the preferences of voters. In our schemes, we calculate the
vector of distances of the possible committees from each of the ballots and,
for a given $ p $-norm, choose the one that minimizes the magnitude of the
distance vector under that norm. The minisum and minimax methods suggested by
previous authors and analyzed extensively in the literature naturally appear as
special cases corresponding to $ p = 1 $ and $ p = \infty, $ respectively.
Supported by examples, we suggest that using a small value of $ p, $ such as 2
or 3, provides a good compromise between the minisum and minimax voting methods
with regard to the weightage given to approvals and disapprovals. For large but
finite $ p, $ our method reduces to finding the committee that covers the
maximum number of voters, and this is far superior to the minimax method which
is prone to ties. We also discuss extensions of our methods to ternary voting.
