It's ridiculously stupid. In my opinion. Actually making the votes private would be fine. Making the votes public but making sure everyone knows that would be fine. Trying to pretend they're private, and hiding them in the UI but making it an open secret that they're not private and anyone who knows what they're doing can look at how other people are voting, is textbook harmful security-by-obscurity misleading your users.

It kind of goes with their authoritarian mindset I guess. "Don't question me, I don't have to be honest with you about what's going on, just shut up and go back to your UI which has only the features I allow you to have. Mine has a little dropdown that can look at the votes. Yours doesn't. Get back in your box. All the good users won't look outside what I tell them to."