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I have by accident downvoted two questions (due to sloppy fingers on an iPad touch screen).

When I tried to correct the mistake, I got a message that my voting could only be changed if the question was edited. I then edited the question, and was allowed to correct my voting.

Is there any good reason for denying me to directly correct the voting when it is so easy to circumvene that hindrance?

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    If you are quick, you can undo it, I think. I'm sure I've undone both up and down votes I've given in error. But you have to be quick and I'm not always quick enough noticing...
    – cfr
    Jul 23, 2014 at 22:53

1 Answer 1

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As stated in Idea behind "Your vote is now locked in unless this answer is edited", the motivation behind locking ones vote stems from an attempt to perturb possible "tactical down-voting".

Tactical down-voting suggests that users could vote down other competing answers in an attempt to possibly let their own answer be more visible (it is possible to sort answers based on votes... in fact, it's sorted by score). While the action is reversible (via an edit to the answer), such a hindrance may be enough of a nuisance to discourage it. And again, while this is easy to do for those with the edit privilege (2K+ reputation), perhaps it would be more likely for lower-rep users to resort to such antics.

Either way, this is a decision made to pro-actively avoid this questionable behaviour and has been rolled out to all posts (not just answers, but questions as well).

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