I imagine the original reason for removing it is somewhat mitigated now that mods can view votes directly in the UI instead of needing to muck around in the database.
mods can view votes directly in the UI instead of needing to muck around in the database.
Ugh, really? That doesn't seem right. I knew admins could, but it really doesn't feel like something mods should be able to see unless everyone gets to see any given user's upvote history.
From a technical point of view, given how federation via ActivityPub works, anyone can see votes on posts and comments. They "just" have to run an instance that federates.
User vote history wouldn't be as feasible, so your point still stands.