Why Process Matters: The Problems with Email Voting in Organizational Governance
Bypassing deliberation erodes shared responsibilityPhoto by Sabrina Brennan | June 29, 2025
Email voting is often framed as “efficient,” a necessary accommodation to busy schedules. But efficiency is a poor substitute for democratic practice. Decisions—especially those shaping policy, values, or foundational documents—require more than a quick tally; they require deliberation, context, and accountability. As Simone Weil wrote, “Responsibility is the possibility of dialogue.” Email voting removes that possibility entirely.
Email Voting Eliminates Deliberation and Collective Intelligence
Foundational decisions demand the kind of engaged dialogue that improves ideas over time. Jürgen Habermas famously argued that democratic legitimacy arises from “the unforced force of the better argument.” Email voting makes such a process impossible. It collapses disagreement, nuance, and creative revision into a static yes/no exercise.
When committees revise bylaws, policies, or governance language, the process itself becomes part of the organization’s meaning-making. Language improves through relationship, as adrienne maree brown—who intentionally stylizes her name in lowercase—reminds us: ideas “evolve through relationship.” Email voting forecloses that evolution.
Email Voting Reinforces Hierarchy—and Often Masks It
Email voting often operates as a top-down mechanism disguised as convenience. When an executive committee circulates an email vote and announces they already hold a majority—while withholding the context of internal discussion—the broader committee is effectively told the decision is already predetermined.
Jo Freeman’s classic essay “The Tyranny of Structurelessness” warns that opaque or informal processes inevitably consolidate power. Email voting is a textbook case: it enables a subset of people to define the terms, timeline, and framing of a decision while presenting the vote as neutral.
It Becomes Even More Hierarchical When One Person Initiates It Unilaterally
The problems intensify when an individual—whether staff, an executive committee member, or even a general committee member—unilaterally initiates an email vote without any prior group agreement that email voting is an acceptable method for the decision at hand.
In these cases, the group never evaluates the risks, alternatives, or norms. The procedural choice itself becomes an exercise of power. This mirrors what political theorists call procedural capture: when rules of engagement are chosen by those with influence, not by the collective.
Email Voting Lacks Transparency and Undermines Accountability
A collective decision should be collectively witnessed. When votes are submitted privately to one individual rather than openly to the group, the process becomes opaque. It opens the door to inevitable questions:
Who received which votes?
Were votes recorded correctly?
How is the official tally stored or verified?
What happens if a member later disputes how their vote was counted?
Without transparency, there is no shared accountability. And without accountability, there is no democratic legitimacy.
All committee members—whether elected or appointed—carry a responsibility to represent the broader constituency and act in the organization’s best interest. When decisions are made via email without deliberation, it can appear to those who rely on the committee that members are bypassing discussion or simply rubber-stamping pre-determined outcomes. This risks undermining trust and the perceived integrity of the committee. Additionally, email voting can raise procedural concerns if it bypasses quorum requirements, lacks verifiable records, or conflicts with the bylaws, agreements, or policies governing decision-making.
Silencing Dialogue Reinforces Domination
Email voting doesn’t just eliminate discussion—it institutionalizes silence. And silence, as Audre Lorde reminds us, “will not protect you.” When committees are asked to vote without conversation, context, or the generative friction of ideas encountering one another, they are asked to participate in a process that restricts both voice and agency.
Lorde also cautions, “Without community, there is no liberation.” Decision-making without dialogue is not community; it is administrative extraction. It fragments members into isolated respondents, stripping governance of its collective wisdom.
bell hooks teaches that “To build community requires vigilant awareness of the work we must continually do to undermine all the socialization that leads us to behave in ways that perpetuate domination.” When decisions are made by email—without deliberation, shared process, or transparency—the organization inadvertently reinforces the very patterns of domination that community governance is meant to resist.
When dialogue disappears, hierarchy fills the vacuum.
Governance Is a Relationship, Not a Transaction
Committees and boards do not exist simply to ratify decisions. They exist to engage in shared responsibility: to debate, refine, challenge, and collectively imagine. Decisions made without discussion are decisions made without relationship. And decisions made without relationship weaken the organization itself.
As Ursula K. Le Guin writes, “To make choices without listening is to act without thinking.” Email voting institutionalizes precisely that: a choice without listening.
Modern Voting Platforms: Texts, Slack, and Technology-Assisted Voting
Many organizations have moved beyond email, adopting text messages, Slack, or other instant messaging platforms to cast votes. Some members even use AI-assisted tools to draft or send their responses. While these technologies promise convenience, they often come at the expense of the practices that make organizations thoughtful, resilient, and democratic.
Decision-making is not just about reaching a conclusion; it is about understanding what is being decided. Dialogue allows members to ask questions, clarify meaning, challenge assumptions, and share insight. Even Zoom or other virtual meetings provide a critical space for this exchange. When discussion is eliminated—whether through asynchronous messaging, email voting, or AI-assisted responses—members lose the ability to help one another understand the stakes and implications of a decision. Technology can unintentionally silo participants, isolating them from each other and fragmenting the shared understanding that is essential for effective governance.
Transparency and accountability are inseparable from this process. When votes are submitted individually or mediated through technology, there is no shared witness to the conversation. Who understands the rationale behind the decision? Who can vouch for its legitimacy? Who bears responsibility if the outcome harms the organization? Without open dialogue, these questions remain unanswered, and the organization’s collective wisdom is diminished.
AI-assisted voting raises an even deeper concern. Delegating voting to AI or other automation may appear efficient, but it removes human judgment, relational insight, and accountability. The organization risks having decisions made on autopilot, without reflection or collective consideration. Audre Lorde’s warning—“Your silence will not protect you”—is particularly relevant: substituting conversation with clicks, messages, or AI-generated responses silences the very voices that sustain democratic, informed, and accountable governance.
The lesson is clear: technology can facilitate communication, but it cannot replace dialogue, transparency, accountability, or the shared understanding that prevents silos and sustains healthy organizational decision-making.
Democratic and Egalitarian Alternatives to Email Voting
Email voting is often justified as efficient, but efficiency should never come at the expense of deliberation, transparency, and shared power. There are multiple alternatives that preserve democratic engagement and accountability while still allowing work to proceed effectively:
Live Meetings With Real-Time Deliberation
Whether in person or virtually, live meetings provide the space for dialogue, debate, and collaborative problem-solving. Members can ask questions, offer amendments, and refine proposals in real time. This method ensures transparency, equal access to information, and collective ownership of decisions—especially important for foundational policies or documents.
Collaborative Document Editing
For decisions that involve policy language, bylaws, or other textual content, co-editing in platforms like Google Docs allows members to propose changes, comment, and debate language collaboratively. This preserves the creative, generative aspect of decision-making that email voting eliminates, while keeping all edits visible to the group.
Asynchronous Deliberation Followed by a Timed Vote
When schedules prevent synchronous discussion, a structured period of comments, questions, and amendments can precede a vote. All discussion must be visible to the group, ensuring transparency and preventing decisions from being shaped in isolation. Only after the deliberation window closes is the vote cast.
Consensus or Modified Consensus Models
Consensus-based models prioritize alignment and collective buy-in rather than simple majority rule. They allow members to raise concerns, propose alternatives, and ensure that decisions are stable because they reflect shared agreement. This method naturally mitigates hierarchy and amplifies marginalized voices.
Rotating Facilitation
Distributing facilitation responsibilities across members prevents procedural power from consolidating in an executive subset. Rotating facilitation builds capacity, reduces hierarchy, and strengthens the group’s ability to govern collectively.
Transparent Online Voting (Post-Deliberation Only)
If a digital vote is unavoidable, use platforms like Loomio, OpaVote, or Decision Deck—tools designed for participatory governance. Crucially, these platforms should only be used after deliberation, not as a substitute for discussion.
Clear Policies Limiting Email Voting
Some organizations allow email votes only for ministerial decisions, emergencies, procedural confirmations, or items already agreed upon in principle. Limiting email voting prevents misuse and ensures decisions are not preempted by a small subset of members.
The guiding principle: deliberation must precede decision; participation must be equitable; transparency must be preserved; and process must never be controlled by a small group. These alternatives allow committees and boards to act efficiently without sacrificing democratic integrity.
Conclusion
I do not oppose email or technology-assisted voting because they are imperfect; I oppose them because they are antithetical to democratic governance. They shortcut deliberation, reinforce hierarchy, silo participants, obscure context, and erode accountability—substituting administrative speed for collective wisdom.
Organizations committed to shared power must actually practice shared power—not bypass it for convenience. Process is not a barrier to democratic decision-making; it is the safeguard that makes democracy possible.
Notes:
The arguments and recommendations in this piece are intended for individuals who serve on committees and boards, where deliberative, transparent, and democratic decision-making processes are essential.
Also published on Substack Dec 1, 2025