This idea there is some "silent majority" of pro-tracking and pro-ad HN users doesn't track with reality. Everyone on HN can uovote and votes are how voices get magnified. If that was the case we'd expect the odd pro-ad/tracking comment to always be near the top of the comments section.
The reality is this is adverse selection: those users probably weren't interested in a post about updates to GA, and didn't click it.
I made a new account, wrote a message, upvoted it with my current account.. and no change in points. I never see any message become black or "less grey" after upvote + refresh. It is a no-op for me.
HN likely does something to prevent vote manipulation from using multiple accounts coming from the same IP. That doesn't exclude the possiblity that your account had a flag to desregard votes before. I personally dislike this kind of hidden moderation like shadow banning. I know people will defend them saying that they are needed to deal with spammers but that does not make them any less dishonest when they invitably affect genuine users.
The reality is this is adverse selection: those users probably weren't interested in a post about updates to GA, and didn't click it.