I think here we mean “release votes” as essentially “refill votes.”
I know the vote limit is to make us prioritize, but it feels like un-voting says “I don’t care at all about this now” which often isn’t true 
It’s sort of a viewpoint conflict that might be smoothed out by something like:
- Establishing that Likes do matter, while Votes indicate favorites
- McWumbly’s stack-ranking idea