A voting system is consistent if, when the electorate is divided arbitrarily into two (or more) parts and separate elections in each part result in the same choice being selected, an election of the entire electorate also selects that alternative. Smith calls this property separability and Woodall calls it convexity.
It has been proven a ranked voting system is consistent if and only if it is a positional voting system. Borda count is an example of this.
The failure of the consistency criterion can be seen as an example of Simpson's paradox.
Famous quotes containing the words consistency and/or criterion:
“All religions have honored the beggar. For he proves that in a matter at the same time as prosaic and holy, banal and regenerative as the giving of alms, intellect and morality, consistency and principles are miserably inadequate.”
—Walter Benjamin (1892–1940)
“Faith in reason as a prime motor is no longer the criterion of the sound mind, any more than faith in the Bible is the criterion of righteous intention.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)