You're right.
It's terrible data.
You know that.
I've had people not know Samus and Link but somehow knew Pit.
Because you're confusing a couple of things.
Ryu is a popular character, but not a popular character request. Popularity can mean a lot of things and since this is pre-ballot they could evaluate it using very different methods.
You're making a false correlation.
Actually there are a lot of ways to figure out what the issue could be. 1 said a couple above.
But again, this is a strange way to argue this as Roy and Lucas were very high for hardcore gamers as well.
Now, I'm not trying to say popularity will trump all, but this "casuals vote for someone different" is weak.