The current vote count is stored *denormalized* the database. If someone clicks to see the actual down- and up-votes, it issues an two extra DB query which is extra load to the server. This should be minimized and is therefore only available to users with a certain minimum reputation.

[See this answer.][1]


  [1]: http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/747/show-total-votes-or-up-down-votes/1007#1007