I discovered and documented in one of the comments here that freedom has a number of linked accounts. Users with an interest in knowing the truth, could pull data on all account names approving witnesses to get a fuller picture of all who have the user-rights to do so. The devs would likely know.

To my mind, the question is, "How is it that the power to approve/unapprove the top 20 witnesses is appointed to any one person or even a small group of people, when the system of witness voting is supposed to determine witness rank?" Voting by the 'community' in this supposedly 'democratic' process is a charade, if ultimately the counts of those votes are dismissed and invalidated by unilateral choices of a single controlling user or small group.

Have a look at this data, noting Voters (Ascending order) and Votes (Asc.) to see how the actual witness voting process is being ignored. The top 20 list would be significantly different if witness ranking actually was reflection of votes.
https://steemian.info/witnesses

Using that same data source sort by Missed Blocks. It seems that nodes with poor performance can remain in the top 20 witness ranks.

I think 'somebody' needs to write out the real methodology and criteria used to determine the actual witness ranking system, but 'nobody' seems to be responsible or accountable. Perhaps someone out of the dev ranks will document the process.

The more I look, the more I find to validate the claim of classism on Steemit. Equating power with wealth is fundamental to Steemit. That's by design and right or wrong, it's the nature of this type of platform. What is objectionable is that people are using that design and their wealth to punish and marginalize the lowest ranking users. Plankton are vulnerable because of their poverty and can be behaviorally manipulated because of their willingness to please wealthy users. That's just the way it is, by design, here on Steemit.