Edit: obligatory explanation (thanks mods for squaring me away)…
What you see via the UI isn’t “all that exists”. Unlike Reddit, where everything is a black box, there are a lot more eyeballs who can see “under the hood”. Any instance admin, proper or rogue, gets a ton of information that users won’t normally see. The attached example demonstrates that while users will only see upvote/downvote tallies, admins can see who actually performed those actions.
Edit: To clarify, not just YOUR instance admin gets this info. This is ANY instance admin across the Fediverse.
I’m not sure, but I’ve seen it mentioned in other comments, for example here.
The post at the screenshot appears to be this one, by @cantstopthesignal@sh.itjust.works to Lemmy Shitpost@lemmy.world, but this screenshot from the database is posted by @muddybulldog@mylemmy.win to You Should Know@lemmy.world, which appears to be admin on a different instance.
The votes might be the one from his instance (I’ve no time to check right now), as I’ve understanded, upvotes and down votes are instance specific, so, this means for the same post: Instance a show 10 upvotes Instance b show 5 (The post is in instance a) Which means a admin know who are the 10 people but can’t know who are the 5 from instance b, and instance b admin know who are his 5 people and not the 10 from instance a. (I might be wrong, if it’s the case please correct me)
I think that this would best be answered by OP, @muddybulldog@mylemmy.win, since TBH I have no idea. So, assuming tagging works here, which one is it?