Can be partially explained the following behavior. User clicks the upvote button without opening the article or watching the video. This is something I do myself, mostly when I have seen the content on a different platform (e.g. already watched the video on YT) but also want to upvote the here.

The other part is delegated upvoting, or something like that. Admittedly not something I know anything much about. Would be interesting to learn more about this process