According to HN Rankings this post never got a ranking, so probably voting ring detector caught this:

https://hnrankings.info/36860065/

There's definitely something iffy here. Over 1200 score in 25m.

Maybe the author shared the upvote link instead of the link to the post itself? It sounds like the most likely explanation.

I do wonder why this issue has never been fixed?!

Very strange, it made it to the #1 on the Best list here on HN.