There are a number of different criteria which can be used for voting systems in an election:
Condorcet criterionCondorcet loser criterionConsistency criterionIndependence of clones criterionIndependence of irrelevant alternativesIndependence of Smith-dominated alternativesLater-no-harm criterionMajority criterionMajority loser criterionMonotonicity criterionMutual majority criterionParticipation criterionPlurality criterionResolvability criterionReversal symmetrySmith criterion