A Person's Democratic Right to Not Vote in Bet Shemesh

I've been casually following the proceedings in the court case of the Bet Shemesh election fraud (via some websites and via few journalists updating on twitter and Facebook).
To be honest, most of what has been said, by both sides, is pretty boring and exactly as was expected. There was fraud, there was not fraud, there was this much fraud, there was that much fraud, evidence is strong enough, evidence is not strong enough...
There was one argument Attorney Yaakov Veinrot, representing Moshe Abutbol as respondent to the petition, said that surprised me. He said:
I represent the mayor, and not the various parties that are here. The results regarding Abutbol are definite, that even if all the real owners of the captured identity cards had come themselves to vote, they definitely would have voted for Abutbol. Even if 956 votes, which is the differential between the candidates, had not come to vote at all, they would have a tie and a no decision. The fraud had no affect on the results.
Being that the real owners did not come to vote, I do not understand how he can claim them as Abutbol voters, if they would vote. Shmuel Pappenheim, a leader in that specific community, declared openly his support for Eli Cohen (despite not actually voting) and has expressed more than once how Abutbol is bad for the city. Maybe others in his community think the same or would have been influenced by him - "if they were to vote". Maybe some like Abutbol and some do not, for any other reason. Maybe they would have voted Abutbol, maybe not. How can he claim them as Abutbol voters. How does he know what they would have done if they would have voted?
And, don't they have the right to not vote? Living in a democracy allows one to take part in the democratic process of participating in elections. Just like a person has the right to express his opinion via his vote, he also has the right to express his opinion by withholding his vote. If they choose not to vote, it means they also do not want to vote for Abutbol - for whatever reason.
He cannot seriously be claiming that their non-votes should be counted in a way that will help Abutbol (not by actually adding their numbers but by saying what would have been). Can he?
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