; User had asked Q1. At least 3 votes were for the closure. May be to avoid "closure", the user deleted it and then user asked the Q2, with the similar content.
Had we merged them or Q2 to be made dupe of undeleted Q1, then those closed votes could have been retained and eventually would have got closed.
Now, we have to post close vote again on Q2 and other users have to do the same.
The user may have acted as such, out of ignorance, but if we know it happening, then why not merge them?
This was not about handling dowvotes alone, as you may have misunderstood it.