Since the introduction of the Electorate badge, I was thinking about the potential side effects of the badge. While it certainly encourages voting on questions, I think the way it works, by tying the number of required question votes to the answer votes, actually discourages voting on answers. Each vote you cast on an answer makes it more difficult for you to to achieve the badge. It's essentially moving you farther away from the badge. This is especially true if you have previously voted on plenty of answers. I believe the badge should have simply required an absolute minimum number of votes on questions (say, 2000 question votes) rather than a function of answer votes. Another possibility is making the vote requirement a function of the user creation date.
In general, it's not a good idea to discourage one good thing (question votes) at the cost of a better thing (answer votes).
Thoughts?