Every time I go from my account to this answers section my name, My Account & Log Out are displayed on the left of the page header. It's not until I try to vote that it tells me to Please login or register to vote... what I noticed is that the view count goes up once when I enter, and again after I log in. Since you state that the up-votes are diminished by views without a vote. Think that view counts should be verified to only count logged in customers (eligible to vote) and only once... so revisiting updates/answers don't also reduce the perceived value of the request.
Thx