You are right in that’s not how democracy works. Unfortunately, due to gerrymandering and Citizens United, it’s how the U.S.’s bastardized version of it “works.” Thanks to gerrymandering in my state (which is a test bed for much of the nonsense we’re now seeing at the federal level), I have absolutely no voice in our state legislature, which has recently decided to neuter the other two (actually democratically elected) branches of government here.