Referendum - huge hole in the story

I am totally confused by the referendum.

If the majority of the country is against oil production (and that's what it looks like in episodes 1-7), then why did they vote for referendum to keep producing oil for 10 more years? If they are ok with oil production, then they should keep producing oil anyway and there is no problem !

I think this is a huge hole in the story which they tried to sweep under the carpet