In the end, the voting phase is a popularity contest. Time spent on chat, and post count on the forums make a huge difference on your votes.
In this case, I got the message (I spent far too much time lurking in Air's secret section). I'ts pretty sad that patchx managed to get the same amount of votes as someone who participated and did all 3 aspects of trials and war to a high standard. (And I'm pretty sure having a name in T50 may make a slight difference, that's why I voted for MrBlonde in 1st Trials)