I understand your point, but at the end of the day those that vote are the ones that “count”. I personally am one of the many that didn’t vote in those referendums due to feeling insulted by them.
The general consensus of this is that why would you vote in this when it won’t change anything? Congress didn’t approve it, so nothing will come out of it. There are some other reasons, of course, but this one of the most common ones.
It’s a complicated situation, many people were upset due to the status consultation process being used as fear mongering for some national concerns and as leverage to have people vote a certain way to “guarantee the right choice” by multiple political parties.
This reason is why so many people abstained from voting in these last two.
I personally don’t believe Congress will ever grant statehood to Puerto Rico, but my opinion is hardly relevant to this particular situation.
Tldr of why I didn’t vote is very simple. If Congress won’t acknowledge the multiple results of past referendums and the local parties use the referendums for fear mongering…not a worthwhile effort.