As of this moment, that story has the following actual totals:

2666 up 140 down

The numbers you see are fuzzed for anti-spam reasons. The more active a post is, the more out of whack that fuzzing becomes.

http://www.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/eaqnf/pardon_me_but_5000_downvotes_wtf_is_worldnews_for/c16omup

So what you're saying is, all the numbers we see are fictional and Reddit can fudge any post it wants to the front page in any order?

Of course we can. We have database access.

But we don't. Besides being a stupid idea and the fact that we don't have time for that, there is no reason. If we want something on the front page, we just blog about it.

http://www.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/eaqnf/pardon_me_but_5000_downvotes_wtf_is_worldnews_for/c16pji0 ...

Is the net effective count true?

Yes.

In other words, does a article with 2000 points more popular than that with 700 points?

Yes. If by popular you mean more people liked it. ;)

http://www.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/eaqnf/pardon_me_but_5000_downvotes_wtf_is_worldnews_for/c16po6q