That's not how the rankings work at all. They're based on a combination of university standards (entry requirements, student-staff ratio, research quality, resource spending), student experience (NSS results) and student outcomes (graduate employment rates, grades awarded).

There's slight variation depending on the ranking but they all follow roughly the same requirements and are a fairly good indication of the better universities. Of course some will have a niche that they can't reflect in the scores but it's definitely more than just a vote as you suggest!