You're severely misunderstanding what's going on here. They had an article with their GOTY pick, then at the bottom of the list there was a poll for readers to say what their pick was. On the same page.?
Death Stranding was never a part of their GOTY nominees...
At first Death Stranding wasn't on it, but after people complained they added it (see the linked thread).
And now they removed it from the page because DS was winning.