Presidents have tended to dissent a little more than Governors.  The greater number of dissents by presidents might reflect a number of factors.  For one, presidents have their own staffs, which can help support alternative views in preparing for a meeting.  Board members share a common staff with the Chairman, and, being in the same building, perhaps have a greater opportunity to influence and be influenced by the Chairman.  In this regard, Bank presidents may act like "outsiders" more readily than Board members.  At the same time, Bank presidents tend to be longer tenured than Board members, and can contribute the institutional memory one might expect from "insiders" when Board membership turns over rapidly. 

...

FOMC members recognize the degree of uncertainty around their judgments.  Unless they perceive that a serious misjudgment is being made, they expect, given common objectives, that when they prefer another policy and their analysis later proves correct, the Committee is likely to move in their direction in time to forestall problems developing.  And they may see their influence on policy as greater over time if they are usually part of the consensus. 

Also, not through any specific policy or initiative, but perhaps just by its culture, the Fed has always placed a premium on uniting around the consensus policy action. While some in the FOMC might have expressed a different opinion from the consensus during the policy discussion, most of our votes are unanimous. At other central banks, such as the Bank of England, dissent is much more common, and 5 to 4 votes are not out of the ordinary.

Leadership of the Federal Reserve is better, so we don't have to.

In response to a question about why he and other recent presidents of the New York Fed have not dissented from FOMC policy decisions, unlike some of their predecessors in earlier decades. 

Unanimous decisions, while desirable, are not required and members are free to dissent from the consensus view if they feel strongly that an alternative policy action is preferable. Indeed, I believe that it is my obligation under the Federal Reserve Act to dissent when I believe strongly that an alternative policy course would be better. Historically, dissents were not unusual though in the recent years they have been relatively rare.

In the next meeting, I'll obviously make an independent assessment, but I haven't seen anything since the last meeting that changes my assessment. 

In response to a question about whether he would dissent for a second consecutive meeting.

My experience in surveying you has been that if I ask the 19 of you “What is the color of an orange?” I couldn’t be sure of getting a majority on a single answer. [Laughter] This most recent survey was no exception. Almost as many of you strongly endorsed an expedited release of your projections as strongly opposed it. An equal number of you endorsed it as opposed it, and there were two lonely people who were indifferent. [Laughter] Thus, since expediting the release of the forecast is a decision that cannot be reversed, it doesn’t seem appropriate to move forward with a discussion of it today.

Moreover, it is important to note that a statement of probable future policy direction may actually be a more important policy decision than the setting of the current intended federal funds rate.  How easy would it be for a member to agree to a policy action on the intended federal funds rate but dissent over the wording of the policy statement indicating a probable future direction to policy?  The FOMC decision process certainly includes the obligation of FOMC members to dissent when they have a fundamental disagreement with the policy decision; that process is well understood today with reference to the decision on the intended federal funds rate.  To maintain the integrity of the dissent process, the public will have to understand that dissents may be in order over the wording of the policy statement, a possibility that has not been widely discussed.

A second tradition is to try to reach a consensus on the policy decision. It is quite common for there to be differences of opinion and yet a unanimous vote. This would be the case, for example, where the question was one of timing rather than of principle. Unanimous votes are common. One or two dissents are not unusual, but more than two dissents at a meeting are rare.

Because of these two traditions—that the chairman is always on the winning side of a vote and that the committee strives to reach a consensus—the chairman's presentation at the start of the policy go-round is so important. It is the key moment, other than the vote itself at the meeting. There is a special sense of anticipation here because the chairman often will provide some new data or some new insight in support of his position.