Elective Monarchy

[Gingerninja]

Can someone explain how it works? Specifically, what decides who people vote for?

Why do people vote for me in the HRE when I vote for my distant cousin of another dynasty? I don't always want to be elected, but the dukes seem to disagree.

 

[Anenu]

From what I understand they vote for who they like the most, if the person they like the most is the current king/emperor they will vote for whoever that person is voting for. I do however wish they would vote for the choice of the person they like the most unless they dislike that person so that I wouldn't only get elected when I want to be. It also seems that some people are bipolar and like to vote randomly and crazily such as my chosen heir not voting for himself and then voting for himself and then not and so on, or the king of Denmark giving me his vote and then withdrawing it and such.

 

[unmerged(617449)]

Adapted from another thread:

Preference goes to the liege's bloodline relatives with the highest diplomacy stat with modifiers for things like religion/culture/personal diplomacy (the candidates are even presorted by diplomacy score for this reason). Unless the liege is absolutely detested and is handicapped with different culture vassals, a bloodline heir with 10 or higher diplomacy is almost always guaranteed to win.

Have your heirs switch to another culture and trained to be midas touched (which lowers diplomacy, I believe), that should shake things up in a generation or two.