vote_reply_dispatch passed the compressed, self-excluded local votes_idx
(vctx->peer_idx, set by raft_cb_send_vote_request's absolute->local remap)
straight through to raft_on_vote_reply, which indexes vote_replies[] in
ABSOLUTE cluster space -- the same space raft_start_election's self-mark
and per-peer send loop use.
For a 3-node cluster's middle node (self_idx=1), the peer at absolute
index 2 compresses to votes_idx=1, colliding with vote_replies[self_idx=1]
-- the slot raft_start_election already marked for the self-vote. The
library's per-peer dedup guard then silently drops the genuine reply as a
duplicate, so votes_granted never reaches quorum even though the peer
granted. Peer 0 is unaffected (compressed index equals absolute), which is
why sequential elections and prior soak runs never surfaced this -- only a
middle-priority node losing its higher-priority peer and depending on its
lower peer's vote hits the collision.
Fixed by routing through ha_repl_ack_abs_peer_idx (already existed,
already unit-tested, already used for the analogous heartbeat-ACK path)
before calling raft_on_vote_reply. ha_record_vote_reply immediately above
is unchanged -- it correctly wants the compressed index for ctx->votes[].
Confirmed pre_vote_reply_dispatch needs no equivalent fix: its send path
already stores the absolute index.
New regression test drives a real 3-node election end-to-end through the
actual decode/dispatch path (not the test-hook bypass every other
real-vote test in this file uses): Expected 2 Was 1 pre-fix, GREEN
post-fix. Full 79-group suite: zero new failures. 10-round --chaotic HA
soak: zero committed divergence, zero committed job loss.