Patent ID: 8327023

Claim:
A querier election method, comprising: starting, by a querier, a sticky-querier-timer; determining, by the querier, that the sticky-querier-timer expires before receiving a query message; entering a sticky-querier state by the querier in response to the determination; starting, by the querier in the sticky-querier state, a sticky-query-timer; determining whether the query message is received before the sticky-query-timer expires; and if the sticky-query-timer expires before receiving the query message, sending, by the querier, a sticky-query message to a network device, the sticky-query message preventing the network device from comparing an address of the network device with a source address of the sticky-query message and from participating in a querier election process in response to the sticky-query message, wherein the querier in the sticky-querier state participates in an election with the network device by comparing an address of the querier with an address of the network device and electing one of the network device or the querier with a lower address to be a sticky-querier.