If you add an onclick listener to an anchor with addEventListener, the return value is ignored and whatever is in the href is activated.
I come across this issue every day and have written about it before, but its only after coming out the other end of writing my addEventListener wrapper/replacement that I really appreciate just how mind bogglingly out of place this behavior is.
If this was a natural phenomena, creationists would simply have to throw their hands in the air and acknowledege that there was obviously nobody at the wheel.