I think if you had to distill 'democracy' to its most concise essence you'd have to say that it was about “voting”.
It seems apparent to me though that it wouldn't be much use to have 'voting' if you had an under-educated, brainwashed or misinformed populace.
So then, transparency (i.e. honesty) and education (i.e. the “open your mind” type, not the “socialisation” type) are clearly important facets of democracy.
I think it would behoove us to remember that.
It's supposed to be about the majority of the citizens *deciding* where they want to go.