Things like consensus , dialogue , mediation, meditation, systems theory, holistic paradigms , the scientific method, therapy, tolerance and so on can all be used to facilitate collective intelligence. Most people will prefer one or another of these perspectives at any given time. The whole world will benefit if those of us engaged in furthering democracy from one of these perspectives can keep the other perspectives in mind as we work. The crises in which we find ourselves demand that we strive for the highest forms of democracy of which we are capable. Our government and mass media use elections as the test of whether or not some country is democratic.
Elections are only one possible tool to make concentrated power answerable to the people.
By themselves, they constitute a minimalist form of democratic participation. The purpose of elections is to generate legitimate democratic authority through which a group or society can direct itself. To the extent these conditions are not met, candidate advocacy can be a distraction from the real work of democracy.