If it seems fishy, it might be

A committee that makes an effort to have gender, geographic, racial, age, and experiential diversity might want to avoid having two people of the same race, gender, workplace and (roughly) experience on the ballot. That they came from a workplace with influential people in the field makes me think it's problematic: what will happen if both of them win?
The nominating committee should have chosen one person from this workplace, and left the other for another year.