Edit: obligatory explanation (thanks mods for squaring me away)…
What you see via the UI isn’t “all that exists”. Unlike Reddit, where everything is a black box, there are a lot more eyeballs who can see “under the hood”. Any instance admin, proper or rogue, gets a ton of information that users won’t normally see. The attached example demonstrates that while users will only see upvote/downvote tallies, admins can see who actually performed those actions.
Edit: To clarify, not just YOUR instance admin gets this info. This is ANY instance admin across the Fediverse.
In fact, I’m tempted to say I WANT people to know I’m not the one downvoting them when I disagree.
SAME its happened on Reddit where I would have a back and forth w someone where we disagreed but it was respectful, and then in the middle of it I’d notice the other person’s comments being -1 even new ones. Meaning someone who isnt in the convo would start downvoting the other person, and I’d be like ‘what if they think I did it? What if that damages a mutual understanding they were close to reaching? What if that turns them off from considering a different point of view bc they assume I’m doing it and that I’m hostile?’ Then sometimes I’d be like “sorry someone is downvoting you its not me”