I do see it as political maneuvering, I would prefer that people manually vote myself, I do understand why some don't, it is not that easy of a thing to do. I also remember the madhatter days of "I gave you an upvote" comment. Those did not go over very well, it was seen as glad handing and trying to get comment votes back. I see down votes as a negative action, does not matter the reason altruistic or not a down vote is a negative action taken against a post, an account or an individual and have led to blanket automated down votes on some people for everything. People can justify all they want about protecting the reward pool, but it is still a down vote, it is still a negative action, I would prefer the down voter leave the reason, but if an automated response is acceptable to the down voter or they do not feel like elaborating on the why of it, at least the community can see the vote clearly.

Check box for up votes I can live with also, even though I do not like the idea of having to justify positive actions, it hurts a person's karma when they point out their good deeds to people.