Your hypothesis is that people voted opposite of their beliefs? Or that they chose not to vote at all?

Both of those feel like possibilities, but probably not in any significant number. In absence of evidence to the contrary, I'd say it's reasonable to look at the results of a vote as evidence of how people actually feel.

Edit: Vote numbers seem consistent with other votes in Debian's history, so it does not appear that a large number of people elected not to vote.