I really think that election system is taking things way overboard. Historically there have been what, 4-5 people demoted and 2-3 actively contested out of 300?
Instead of a system of electing new contributors a thread announcing new contributors where trusted users could contest their promotion would be far simpler and less of a pain in the ass to keep track of as long as we restricted who may participate in the thread and the type of posts (30 "oh yes I agree this is a good poster" posts in a row help far less than 5 "this is a bad poster he should not be promoted for x reason" posts.)