Simple —
You have to stake with a validator to vote.
They turned off new staking when they paused the blockchain, same time when they turned off minting.
Thus, they effectively stopped new people from voting.
Now only legacy and devs are having their say on the proposal.
DO Kwan knew from the beginning that by stopping staking, he would be able to use his political clout to force through whatever forward plan he wanted, regardless of popular sentiment
TLDR — s**t was rigged before we started boys