I... had not thought of the situation from that perspective.
On the one hand, I want to look at this and say 'conspiracy theory'... but on the other hand I could potentially see this being possible.
On the third hand, when in doubt, apply Hanlon's Razor: don't attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity.
I would be highly unsurprised. Spez has shown in the past he isn't above screwing with things in the background.
He's said he plans to change things so subreddit users can vote mods out - specifically aimed at the mods who are keeping subreddits dark. Certainly there's no room for anything to go wrong with the voting system that he has direct control over which also happens to have no external oversight or means of 3rd party verification.