Democracy works best when the people voting are well informed. I'm saying it seems like people have been manipulated by a very easy "us vs them" narrative to get the lower employees on board with the wishes of the upper management. And if you poised the question of "what direction should the company take, to pursue ethical AI or to try and make profitable AI" or something similar you probably would get different results.
Also this isn't really democracy in the work place just people attaching their names to a letter. Of which I'm betting most didn't even read themselves.