Reading the blue box on the right I notice the following:

After 7 days, the top 30 nominees, ordered by reputation, advance to the primary phase.

I suspect we may never reach that number of candidates but nonetheless I believe that has the potential to remove from the list a (relatively) low rep candidate who might make an excellent mod in favour of others with higher rep who might not even get a single vote other than their own.

I realise that sometimes arbitrary lines need to be drawn but is this really the best way? Perhaps a decision based on comments might be fairer and more beneficial to the community.