DPOS is not a democracy it's more like an anarchocapitalist experiment. Is not 1 person 1 vote (or 1 account 1 vote). It is based on ownership rights. The blockchain is a consortium of several SP owners, that designate administrators. The witnesses election process is just an extension of ownership mandate.

The problem with STEEM in particular, is that Steemit Inc.´s STEEM share has been designated as a special type of asset. At code level, SP from Steemit Inc. is the same as SP from John Doe. At social level it was agreed that those STEEM had no voting rights. A soft-fork was attempted in order to code the social agreement regarding that stake.

A REDPOS protocol should not turn a blockchain into a democracy, because if you completely erase the ownership concept, you destroy the value of each stake. However no consortium or human community would let a 0 years old or cero experienced person turn into an administrator.