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.