Artist’s conception of the moment Flam_Hill realized they had won control over the EHE Corporation in Eve Online with just two votes. (credit: Disney / Gracie Films / Frinkiac)

Remember that early Simpsons episode where Martin wins the student body presidency over Bart because only two students bothered to vote? Eve Online played host to a similar situation recently as players took advantage of the game’s arcane corporate voting system to give themselves full control of over an in-game corporation and an estimated $22,000 of in-game assets, all under the noses of absent corporate leadership.

How did no one notice?

User Flam_Hill laid out the mechanics of the election-based heist on Reddit. The start, Flam_Hill said, was simply an external observation of the staging area for Event Horizon Expeditionaires (EHE), a 299-member in-game corporation that dates back to 2011. That observation phase revealed the encouraging and crucial sign that the CEO and directors in charge of maintaining the corporation were “minimally active,” as Flam_Hill put it.

With that information in hand, Flam_Hill used a “very clean account with a character with a little history” to apply for new membership in EHE. After weeks of waiting, corporate leadership finally logged in to perform some basic social/security checks and approve the applications for Flam_Hill and a confederate.