I am significantly more open to making “n votes” in the header a hyperlink that simply takes you to the first post, I think this captures a huge part of the use cases here. Cause then you can click “n votes” from topic list or header to get to the place you vote on, regardless of read position.
I think it is not too onerous to have to go back to the top to vote, especially since the majority of users will simply arrive at post #1 and then vote on it.
With the latest round of changes I tried to make the plugin simpler, I can’t really easily move the widget around to somewhere else in the DOM it just does not belong in the header by default. I feel this adds complexity without a very clear gain, even if engagement can be a bit up.
Keep in mind you have a very restricted pool of votes, its not as though making it much more trivial will make much of a difference for you when you only have 5 things to vote on.