Adam gave up his own blockchain to join BitShares. Adam plans to sign up users for his voting platform and that would bring users to BitShares.
If Adam builds a voting service around a set of user accounts other than BitShares accounts then he will have violated his end of the merger plan.
Changing the rules to steal someones stake will haunt our reputation for ever, we learned from the merger how much damage that can do and do not wish to establish a precedent of doing it again.
If the elected witnesses decide to block transfers from that balance then that is on them and the stakeholders that vote for them. But I personally would rather accept responsibility for a past mistake than make a new mistake in the present.
There have been many individuals whom have let me down since I started BitShares and these individuals have walked away with several hundred thousand dollars in total. Some downright stole it, others failed to deliver as promised, etc. Every company I have ever worked with has had individuals that were a net loss. We try to avoid mistakes, but they will happen and for our own sanity it is best to let them go, learn from them, and do better next time.
Dwelling on the "woulda, coulda, shoulda" does nothing but destroy our future potential.