The scenario: Had all victory conditions set, and Alterians had been Rank #1 in Tech Victory the entire game. Later, they declared war on me, and I therefore didnt bother with trying to "cheat" and look at their colony/ship/tech list by doing any diplomacy.
As it turns out, I won the tech victory. Looking back at my save games, the Ranking is completely broken. I eventually climbed to rank 2 (and I had researched ALL of the Age of Ascension techs, so I thought it was VERY close). Turns out after pulling the save game and looking at diplomacy, I had 111 techs the Alterians did not have and they had 14 I did not have. BUT, they were still rank #1. In fact, they had ZERO Age of Ascension techs, and I had them all, and they were rank 1 and I was rank 2.
Lesson learned to know its not accurate, but it should be fixed, to balance out AI. I assume the AI looks at this, by knowing that "you are going for a tech victory". This should obviously hurt relations, and have them go to war with you (and gang up on you).
Save game available if needed.