I'm a little concerned that the entire MN network can reach 80%+ compliance with a protocol bump within 48 hours, but that 96 hours after an MN vote is initialized, we still have less than 50% participation...and the voting process is not that difficult (log into VPS, type "./dashd masternode vote yea" and log off VPS).
The vote is open for 2 weeks.
If you look at the Etherum sale, most were sold at the last minute. People were (conjecture) waiting to see what was what.
Then there are those that don't keep up with the threads (or go MIA, see
above).
Being on the wrong protocol means you can get bumped off the network, so I guess people check for some things.
Also, abstain basically = no. What's to say no voters can't be bothered to vote, because they have by default?
It's true that abstain is a "soft" no, but all abstentions become irrelevant once the preset quorum is reached (in this case, 50%+1). I doubt abstention is presently being used as a negative voting strategy, since a "hard" no would be durable no matter how many people had voted. At this point, abstentions look like apathy.
P.S. I'm wondering of Otoh's 25% of the MN network has voted or not. If not, it could indicate that he is reluctant to overly influence the project (unlike what some detractors have said) in which case it implies that only 25% of the network is not participating.