Well, at least Zawa isn't going through to the final, which removes a small amount of the drama, but does little to lessen the effect of 1-3 fewer upgrades for Deuce.
I 100% do not believe Zawa did this intentionally. Almost certainly, he clicked "Remove Poll" instead of "Remove Vote" which caused the failure.
About the phrasing of reply, i am not sure why he did not include deuce's number of votes and vote %, but reading it, it simply sounds like "which had the highest fraction" refers to the challengers, not deuce. I imagine that his phasing was (silly) but referring to the challengers only because that's who would be most affected, as the poll could affect who ended up in the final.
I think it would be a shame to have Zawa, who up until this point has been an exemplary TrO, among other staff positions, stripped of positions. We have precious few members who are active and driven enough, and competent enough at their roles, to have this (imo) mistake mar his otherwise perfect reputation.