The faction ruler always has final say, and I've seen multiple times where it was a 100 to 0 vote, and the 0 got the vote (very weird), and after a time he likes to hog, especially if a faction begins to snowball, unfortunately I think the fief problem isn't top priority right now, but I'm sure it is being looked into. I'm hoping, like everyone else, that the only people eligible for taking a fief are the people who conquered it, which would incentivize the entire faction to deploy, rather than half of them do the heavy lifting and the other half reap the rewards for no work