>I think it's tied to total karma, but someone would have to provide more information there.
According to https://github.com/minimaxir/hacker-news-undocumented "After users reach 501 Karma, they gain the ability to downvote another comment."
I often wonder whether "limited downvotes" scheme would work: (let's say) 30 downvotes per 24h are free to use and after that each downvote decreases your karma by 1.