Maybe you misread, the quote shows it is the intended behavior. They don't care about the number of votes, only if it is more up, equal, or more down. After tha

Maybe you misread, the quote shows it is the intended behavior. They don't care about the number of votes, only if it is more up, equal, or more down. After that they care about age more. The article wants them to base it more on number of votes. You can tell from the parts about returning in whatever order the DB wants that they are going for speed and scalability as well. So more down voted posts being a certain way may not even matter to them as long as they are off the page.