Thats an interesting point that the vote was in favor of Randall being executed. Shane would have been somehwat justified to killing him and then saying to the group, "we voted on this, Rick didn't want to pull the trigger because Carl came wandering in and then Dale died, but I feel it was important to do. I hope the group can understand I did this for everyone's protection."

He could have also even staged freeing and joining Randall, like he did, and then report back to everyone what Randall said, that its gonna be fun to get back and rape and pillage with the group and Shane will fit right in.

I do get what you're saying, but I think the group had Rick's side most of the time because they simply weren't thinking the way they needed to be thinking. They changed at a slower rate than Shane, but as many people point out, the group is at where Shane was at, if not further. Even his killing of Otis was similar to what Carol did with Karen and David, even though that situation wasn't premeditated and was in the heat of the moment for his own and Carl's survival.

The fact of the matter is, Rick was saying, he isn't even giving lip service to democracy anymore. You call out Rick's bad calls, but he had something that Shane didn't have which was the faith of the group. Thats almost more important than making the right calls 100% of the time because it keeps people together. And its Rick who survived when Shane had him dead to rights. Rick was able to come up with a plan quickly and execute it using Shane's misunderestimation of him. Rick kept everyone alive on the road 8 months before the prison. In the context of the whole series we see Rick develop as a leader to the point where he is very good at leading people even if his decisions are not always great. More is lost by indecision than by wrong decision sometimes and arguing about everything like the Randall situation or like anything with Andrea around just causes problems and the group to be less strong.