I understand that sentiment Steve. And I can see that might prevent you from using them. But because the winners aren't ranked, your positive votes essentially take away people's votes as well!
It's all about the cut line:
let's say there are three films on the cut line: (I'll use old movie names for the example)
48. The Black Hole (22 votes)
49. Time Bandits (20 votes)
50. Short Circuit (19 votes)
51. The Last Starfighter (19 votes)
52 F/X (19 votes)
You have three films tied for one spot. A negative vote for F/X removes one film from the winner's group, whereas a positive vote for Short Circuit removes TWO films from the winner's spot.
Your negative vote was actually the nicer thing to do!
Because films aren't ranked it's all about the ties or lack of ties at the #20 and #50 film mark! I can't talk about whether or not this was the case in our thing, but I guess I wouldn't have brought it up if it didn't factor into it somehow.