Election timeout is random to prevent split votes. The up-to-date restriction ensures that you can only get elected if you're ahead, which, combined with the re

Election timeout is random to prevent split votes. The up-to-date restriction ensures that you can only get elected if you're ahead, which, combined with the requirement to gather the votes of the majority of the votes, ensures that the leader has all committed entries. Check section 5.4.3 in the paper, where it proves it quite elegantly IMHO: https://raft.github.io/raft.pdf https://raft.github.io/raft.pdf