Thanks Dessalines!

To make it clear what I am talking about - I would expect any voting distribution for 16 votes to be at least semi-random on a controversial comment, in example such as this:

However, the distribution as it occurred looked like this on the first 16 votes:

A controversial comment will have such a ratio, but any comment controversial or not will almost never have this kind of distribution unless there are multiple accounts waiting for vote up events to occur so that they can send a vote down.

I can believe this happening 2, 3, even 4 times by chance, but not 8 times.

I'm entirely aware, I'm specifically referencing my top level comment which at the time had no replies.

Additionally, what you are describing does not explain both a vote up and vote down, occurring at the same time 8 times consecutively, so I'm not quite sure I understand what your point is as what actions occurred prior to hitting the button doesn't enter into what I'm describing as far as I can determine.

Even if people read a thread before scrolling back up and hitting the up or down button, them hitting that button at the same time as someone else hitting the opposing button 8 times in a row within a few moments of each other is still a statistical anomaly.

See my other comment in which I graphed what I am talking about in order to better explain myself.