Flags are NOT votes — which is part of the problem, HN treats flags as votes and users are abusing it. Down voting is not even possible for submissions unless you flag a submission. Down votes on comments is not possible unless you have 500 rep, but only 31 Karma, they can flag submissions — which is a super downvote and frequently abused, and Dang for sure is aware of this.

Source for rep required to downvote or flag on HN:

- https://github.com/minimaxir/hacker-news-undocumented/blob/m...