A robust, distributed election protocol

The authors present an election protocol that does not assume an underlying ring structure and that tolerates failures, including lost messages and network partitioning, during the execution of the protocol itself. The major problem to be solved is that when nodes cannot communicate with one another or messages are lost, a conflict in resolving the election will often arise. In the authors´ approach, the conflict is detected by the cohorts (noncandidate participants in the election). Related election protocols are discussed, and the system model is described together with assumptions about the communication subsystem. The protocol and the lost-message situations are then examined