Something that would be more democratic than what we have now would be something that involved people in the discussions that gave rise to the bills and amendments in the first place, and in the debates concerning their merits, rather than just “Pick which person will make your decisions for you” plus an occasional referendum on the ballot.
If the forum in which those discussions were sufficiently open to all folks desiring to participate, the “tyranny of the majority” thing would be less of an issue. Consider this board: if you’ve been here for long, you know how a person with a well-considered perspective who takes time to explain and defend it (and to accept and respond to criticisms and demands for supportive evidence and so on) can have an effect on the thinking of others here, even if that person is very much in the minority. If instead the board membership had simply been polled and the results tallied, those minority viewpoints would have been washed away, unconsidered and unheard.
Something that would be even yet more democratic would be a decision-making mechanism that would improve upon the conventional vote itself as the typical decision-making apparatus. For instance, an issue could be decided with degrees of permanence, with greater permanence requiring agreement closer to consensus and also requiring more process, as well as more process to undo. An issue that remains volatile, with a majority opinion but many fervent dissenters, would remain a decision “made” at a tentative level, discussion would continue, revotes would be common. A different issue with a solid majority and very little active dissent would probably get “promoted” to a higher degree of permanency, where before it could be brought up again for formal discussion a “discussion about whether or not to formally discuss it” would have to take place and illustrate sufficient difference of opinion and interest in the topic. A third issue with near-unanimous agreement would end up being even more permanent.
Take that model and marry it to the notion of decentralizing (so that nations have states and states have counties and counties have villages and villages have neighborhoods and neighborhoods have individual people, and at every juncture you give the widest possible authority to the lower levels to tell the upper levels to stick it), and reduce to an absolute minimum the investing of decision-making authority in the hands of a few designated decision-makers and you’ve got a better and more democratic system.
At the extreme, you have an organized, structured, rule-following anarchy, in fact. I’m one of many who believe it is a direction to go in, a destination to approach as closely as possible, in the sense that progress that doesn’t quite get us all the way to that extreme is nevertheless highly desirable progres. I’m one of a smaller subset who also believe the goal itself is actually attainable, in the sense that structures of communication and decision-making could function effectively and efficiently without so much as a single structured relationship where some people have authority over others, but even if I’m wrong, the sense of “this is the direction to go” persists as valid.
Interestingly, it’s a perspective that folks coming from the right (libertarian individual-rights folks) and also from the left (radical egalitarians, feminism-inspired anti-hierarchicalists) have arrived at.