When I noticed the vox populi badge, not long after after creating my account, I decided I would try to get it, since I had some free time.

I took an extended tour of Ask Ubuntu and found 40 really great questions and answers deserving my upvote. I learned a lot that day!

Now on some days I still use all my votes, because I spend a lot of time exploring and testing, and finding posts that deserve them.

So I think the badge served its purpose in my case :)

I think, in general, if people care enough about the site to want to get badges, they will most likely care enough to vote in good conscience.

When I noticed the vox populi badge, not long after after creating my account, I decided I would try to get it, since I had some free time.

I took a sort of tour of Ask Ubuntu and found really great questions and answers deserving my upvote. Probably the most helpful part of that was finding some canonical questions, key landmarks...

Since then, I've never gone out of my way to use up my votes, but nonetheless I very often run out of post votes, comment votes and sometimes even close votes, just in the course of my participation.

I think the badges exist to encourage us to vote, because voting is how the site is curated of course, and also to help us gauge how much we should be voting; a lot, but not too much.

Personally I think the badge served a good purpose in my case :)

I think, in general, if people care enough about the site to want to get badges, they will most likely care enough to vote in good conscience.