He won by exploiting a flawed mechanic. This coup makes no sense in character. There's no logical way this would ever happen in any world real or fantasy that had anything remotely resembling rules of said reality.
There have been many flawed mechanics and there will always be. Like all the previous cases, nothing will be reversed and devs will fix it in time if they(or just Tim now) will fix it if they see it is exploitable.
This has happened what once in the past 10 years? Now that you know this is very possible, I am sure people will be more careful when they are appointing elders.
