On the flip side, if you can't count non-voters as yes, it would...

On the flip side, if you can't count non-voters as yes, it would be very difficult to get any directors elected in the first place...Most people are apathetic about their numerous shareholdings and care about only a subset of them.

You have 50 stocks....are you going to care about each vote about each non-executive director, as well as approve their $200k every time the issue comes up? I don't think anyone actually likes caring about popularity contests once very few years, let alone hundreds of them.