It’s academia. People join the academy so they can do research and teaching and absolutely nobody wants to do this crap administrative work. So often you get situations where bad people volunteer for a job that is “prestigious” but also involves shoveling manure, and you can’t convince other people to do the job instead.

Wait until you see how many districts for even important positions like state representative have candidates who run unopposed. You too could become a state representative if you moved to bum fuck nowhere and learned how to talk to boomers.

Nah, that's often how it works - sure, becoming a rector would mean a pay increase, but it would require you to become an administrator and stop doing what you love, most likely permanently (as the gap of being away from your field of research for multiple years makes it hard to become productive again - returning to active science is definitely possible, but rarely happens), switching your career for an entirely different one as far as day-to-day tasks go. And if you're already somewhat comfortable as a professor, why would you do that to yourself?

I've literally seen faculty 'drawing straws' as of who'll agree to be the sole candidate for a particular elected administrative position, because it's clear that one of them has to do it for the university to function, but no one wanted to.

Would it be better if he got 100% of votes for him? He was the only candidate, nothing most people working there could go.