# Why is the number of votes displayed inconsistently?

If I view the bottom of my profile page, then it is displayed that I have cast $2087$ votes. On the other hand, if I click on the "votes" tab on the right of my profile page, and if I subsequently click on the tab "all", then it is displayed "$1975$ Votes Cast". If $1975\neq 2087$, then there's a discrepancy here.

Do you know which vote count is the correct one (I assume the latter because it displays all the questions and answers on which I voted)? Also, is this discrepancy a bug in the system, and if so, can we fix it?

Thanks so much for taking the time to read this question!

Addendum: After the painstaking* task (*not really) of typing the above question, I have realised that Asaf Karagila has encountered the same problem. In fact, the following question was posed on May 2, 2012 and has received no response since then: https://math.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/4102/bug-in-the-new-votes-page-in-the-profile . Consequently, I believe that it's a good idea for me to pose this question again to generate attention on this issue (software bug?).

Exercise for the Reader: I know this is Meta (and this is a question) so why on Earth am I giving exercises? The reason is I suspect I'm not the only one for which this inconsistent display of vote count applies. I'm pretty sure that if you check your profile page, then you would also observe such an inconsistency ...

Back in the days, the overall count did not include votes on deleted posts. That was changed last year: "Votes cast" should include votes on deleted contributions. One reason is that the votes cast by a user on deleted posts are still contributions to the community (e.g., downvotes on junk that gets eventually deleted), and as such they count toward vote-based badges.

On the other hand, the categories on votes tab of your profile do not include your votes on deleted posts, even your votes to delete and undelete. There is a feature request to change this behavior. Delete votes tab in profile doesn't show votes on deleted posts (ironically)

By the way: since we are all now checking our Votes tab, someone will notice the closure votes annotated with (deleted):

This does not mean the question was deleted (as I first thought), but rather that the vote has been "accounted for" in the process of closure. If this makes no sense to you, I'm not surprised. In the thread What causes close votes to be annotated with "(deleted)"? two SE employees had this lovely conversation:

I thought it was supposed to be internal-only cause it's kind of useless and confusing for everyone else. – Anna Lear♦

Should say (waffles) for everyone else. Just as useless and confusing, but much tastier with maple syrup. – Shog9♦

• Where can I vote for the introduction of waffles? – Hagen von Eitzen Jul 24 '13 at 16:15
• @HagenvonEitzen Here... you can't vote. Here you can. – 40 votes Jul 24 '13 at 16:37
• Thanks, 40 votes! Your answer is very informative but alas, I can't give 40 votes to it. (All those 40 deleted votes of mine going to waste - it's a shame that I can't give them to you!) I'll wait a couple of days to see if anyone else has anything to add; if not, then I'll accept your answer. – Amitesh Datta Jul 25 '13 at 7:00
• @Amitesh They are not necessarily wasted. Some of those votes may have been what caused the post to be deleted - either because the poster decided to cut their losses, or because of the autodeletion of negatively scored unanswered questions. – 40 votes Jul 27 '13 at 3:21
• @40votes Thanks for your comment! I agree with what you typed but I haven't downvoted in more than a year. (I used to downvote more often but I don't believe in it anymore except in the (extremely rare) cases where the user in question is evidently participating in bad faith. The main reason is that many users take downvotes quite negatively so if I see something that I think can be improved, then I would just post a comment and upvote once the improvement is made. In any case, appreciating positive contributions (of which there are many) by upvoting seems more constructive than downvoting.) – Amitesh Datta Jul 27 '13 at 6:08