Chapter 9 High Availability for FortiOS 5.0 : An introduction to the FGCP : HA override : Controlling primary unit selection using device priority and override
  
Controlling primary unit selection using device priority and override
To configure one cluster unit to always become the primary unit you should set its device priority to be higher than the device priorities of the other cluster units and you should enable override on all cluster units.
Using this configuration, when the cluster is operating normally the primary unit is always the unit with the highest device priority. If the primary unit fails the cluster renegotiates to select another cluster unit to be the primary unit. If the failed primary unit recovers, starts up again and rejoins the cluster, because override is enabled, the cluster renegotiates. Because the restarted primary unit has the highest device priority it once again becomes the primary unit.
In the same situation with override disabled, because the age of the failed primary unit is lower than the age of the other cluster units, when the failed primary unit rejoins the cluster it does not become the primary unit. Instead, even though the failed primary unit may have the highest device priority it becomes a subordinate unit because its age is lower than the age of all the other cluster units.