The total question indicator for the "Unanswered" tab is 2 to 3 times higher than the actual number of questions displayed (by multiplying the number of pages with questions per page). Some examples:

* [Stack Overflow](https://stackoverflow.com/unanswered): 833,807 vs 292,100 (5842 pages of 50 questions)
* [Meta Stack Overflow](https://meta.stackoverflow.com/unanswered): 6,252 vs 2,145 (143 pages of 15 questions)
* [WordPress Stack Exchange](https://wordpress.stackexchange.com/unanswered): 2,125 vs 945 (63 pages of 15 questions) - this is where I noticed it

Maybe it is counting questions and answers for the unanswered questions?