Votes should absolutely be public. They were on KBin, and it made people more civil for it because you could be shamed if you were dislike trolling or liking all of your own posts/comments to make them look better (which is something you actively have to do on here, unlike Reddit).
Given this place is pseudo-anonymous anyways, and people comment far more personal and identifiable info here anyways (which tbf you should be careful about), I think public votes would do much more good than harm.