> For it to be a truly democratic process there absolutely needs to be a way to withdraw consent from a moderator who behaves differently than expected.

This is a strange requirement to me. Do parliamentary democracies have this feature? I don't think so. And they are "truly democratic" in my book.

FYI: I have been part of SO.com for about 15 years. I am regular on both sides of the Q&A. Never once have I felt compelled to vote in any election on SO.com. The site admin is totally uninteresting to me.