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I thought there was the limit of 40 votes, but when I visited https://math.stackexchange.com/users?tab=Voters&filter=week this morning, I noticed this

enter image description here

How come?

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  • $\begingroup$ UTC 3am all negative posts(with no upvoted answer) that are closed for reasons other than duplicate will be deleted given back all votes spent here. If posts are deleted for any other reason during the day, all spent votes will be returned. On Saturday UTC 0.01am All negatively voted questions are removed - there is a ten minute or so period of lag in which votes can be returned. $\endgroup$
    – user142198
    Commented Apr 19, 2015 at 9:33

1 Answer 1

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Yes, it is possible.

How this happens is discussed in this question on Meta Stack Exchange. The short of it is that votes on posts that are subsequently deleted during the same UTC day do not count towards the daily cap.

(Actually, that's pretty much the long of it, too.)

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  • $\begingroup$ That is one of the funniest rules I ever heard. Thanks for clarification. $\endgroup$
    – VividD
    Commented Apr 19, 2015 at 5:07
  • $\begingroup$ @VividD: It wasn't always like this, and some of the reasoning for changing it is contained in this feature request. $\endgroup$
    – user642796
    Commented Apr 19, 2015 at 6:15
  • $\begingroup$ Hm, that feature request is only about counting and displaying, but ok contains some reasoning for the issue from my question. The rule sounds to me like "If you throw more trash, you will be given larger trashcan today" What if I for some reason like to have a large trashcan (lets say I love to brag I have the largest trashcan in the city), and start throwing good stuff in it? $\endgroup$
    – VividD
    Commented Apr 19, 2015 at 6:28
  • $\begingroup$ @JoelReyesNoche The point is not the size of the trashcan but whether it grows depending on my actions, I am sure you understand the subtlety. $\endgroup$
    – VividD
    Commented Apr 19, 2015 at 6:44
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    $\begingroup$ @VividD: From what I can see, the change was in part made because users were casting votes and then having them not count (e.g., towards badges). Note that you still cannot have more than 40 "live" votes cast in any UTC day. But, yes, if you vote on more stuff that soon goes into the trash you get to vote more. But that's not really about throwing stuff into the trash, since we're only talking about up-/downvotes. $\endgroup$
    – user642796
    Commented Apr 19, 2015 at 6:50
  • $\begingroup$ I would be picking only questions that I can make fully satisfy criteria for deleting after my downvote, that very day, even if there are much worse questions lurking out there... I would soon start downvoting just for the sense of accomplishment of getting extra votes. My goal would not be to help the site but to accumulate more and more opportunities to downvote. $\endgroup$
    – VividD
    Commented Apr 19, 2015 at 7:04
  • $\begingroup$ As far vote counting, I do agree that vote counts should not depend on the further destiny of questions that were voted on, but the fact that they were dependant suggests bad data model - those counts should have been simple fields associated to each member, and updated only when member votes. But since they obviously were not organized that way, a band aid solution is implemented to rectify "injustice", creating side effects that logically do not have anything to do with correct vote counting. $\endgroup$
    – VividD
    Commented Apr 19, 2015 at 7:32

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