  We study distributed plurality consensus among $n$ nodes, each of which
initially holds one of $k$ opinions. The goal is to eventually agree on the
initially dominant opinion. We consider an asynchronous communication model in
which each node is equipped with a random clock. Whenever the clock of a node
ticks, it may open communication channels to a constant number of other nodes,
chosen uniformly at random or from a list of constantly many addresses acquired
in previous steps. The tick rates and the delays for establishing communication
channels (channel delays) follow some probability distribution. Once a channel
is established, communication between nodes can be performed instantaneously.
  We consider distributions for the waiting times between ticks and channel
delays that have constant mean and the so-called positive aging property. In
this setting, asynchronous plurality consensus is fast: if the initial bias
between the largest and second largest opinion is at least $\sqrt{n}\log n$,
then after $O(\log\log_\alpha k\cdot\log k+\log\log n)$ time all but a $1/
\text{polylog } n$ fraction of nodes have the initial plurality opinion. Here
$\alpha$ denotes the initial ratio between the largest and second largest
opinion. After additional $O(\log n)$ steps all nodes have the same opinion
w.h.p., and this result is tight.
  If additionally the distributions satisfy a certain density property, which
is common in many well-known distributions, we show that consensus is reached
in $O(\log \log_\alpha k + \log \log n)$ time for all but $n/\text{polylog } n$
nodes, w.h.p. This implies that for a large range of initial configurations
partial consensus can be reached significantly faster in this asynchronous
communication model than in the synchronous setting.
