From Websters Online:

Main Entry: de·moc·ra·cy
Pronunciation: di-'mä-kr&-sE
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural -cies
Etymology: Middle French democratie, from Late Latin democratia, from Greek dEmokratia, from dEmos + -kratia -cracy

1 a : government by the people; especially : rule of the majority b : a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections

4 : the common people especially when constituting the source of political authority

(bolded emphasis mine)

These work pretty well for me. But in the US today, there are too many voters who are disenfranchised (don't really have a vote). I don't believe a government can be "by the people" unless all votes are counted. It is not possible, with the Electoral College system, for all votes to count. With this system, a fairly large percentage of votes will not be counted. And with this system, too much power is held by special interests rather than by the body of the electorate.

In this context, I wouldn't agree with your assessment that the system is this way because the voters have allowed it to get this way. This system was set up in the beginning by those who created the electoral processes in this country.