Member servers communicate with one another to determine which server (or servers) should be active. As described previously, this communication—in the form of ballots—can occur via Rallypoint or IGMP multicast. These transport mechanisms are described in greater detail below.

It is crucial that every server group have an operational Rallypoint group assigned to them for leader election. If member servers are unable to communicate with one another, the result will depend on the quorum strategy chosen and the number of servers within the group. If the quorum strategy is 'none,' each server in the group will become active if election communications fail. If the quorum is 'n-1' or 'majority', then each server in the group is likely to go into standby mode leaving no servers active (the actual behavior depends on the number of servers in the group and its relationship to the selected strategy).