I've noticed that when I curate too much then my voting power drops below a 100%. This indicates that these heavy contribution earning accounts start off with 100% voting power. If it drops below 100% they can create a new account and fund it.
Anyone know whether the posting, replying and curation algorithms are open source?
Here's https://steemit.com/steem/@abit/maximum-voting-power-usage some information on voting power.
That article's outdated, the numbers have been tweaked since then.