This seems likely to me as the same thing seems to occur when a moderator on a small subreddit makes a post (even without making it stickied). Users seem to take it upon themselves to upvote out of reverence.

The score does not correlate directly w/ number of upvotes

It's not a r = 1 correlation, but it's definitely strongly correlated.

It is close enough, especially for content that is not likely to be down voted.