A non-executive director of a large public company once remarked that balloting in the board room would be a great idea. The implication was that the executive directors were exercising an undue influence over the decisions of the company. Disagreement with leadership proposals and decisions is never popular with leaders and their close followers. Dissidents will always experience some form of pressure. Realistic discussion and debate are stifled.
Disagreement often causes offence.
Decision-making in the various organisations in our communities often generates heat, and less forceful people retreat into silence and a dissatisfied acquiescence. The question arises, whether this is really a democratic society at all. While the ballot is the fairest way to arrive at the decisions which an organisation must resolve, an extension of its use from elections to ordinary decision-making is rare. Decisions reached in meetings, without any chance of a ballot, are never truly representative of the membership view. The ballot defuses the undue power of forceful people, diffuses emotional heat, and restores a highly desirable calm to the decision-making process.