ping, :p Options

[fido77]

when i open a lobby to play some l4d only americans join and then they complain like little bitches about the ping. then they do the damn vote to return to lobby(which pisses me off). then we start another game and this repeats. i have never had a problem with ping effecting any amount of lag in the game. i usually get little to no lag throughout the whole game and my ping is usually 170 or higher. as far as i know, if everyone has the same ping of around 170, the game is the same as if everyone had a ping of 50. this voting to return to lobby usually ends up with me kicking about 4 - 5 people from lobby and waiting for others to join(which makes it take a while to get a game going). is there a way to turn off vote to return to lobby? or a way to make it to where only people from uk and friends list can join my lobby?