The first true democracy is fairly young: Belgium.

Any place with voting prior to 1900 is not a democracy, but 'just' a nation that has a voting system. In a democracy all voters are represented, and that is not what we have in the USA (nor Canada, nor UK, nor NZ, nor Australia).

We have a system in which voters compete with voters for representation. In the US Senate, for instance, about 40% of the voters did NOT receive the one they voted for.

In Belgium, 150 seats in parliament means that 99.34% of the voters are guaranteed they can point their fingers to the actual person or party they voted for themselves, sitting in a seat.

Majority decision USA:

50% + 1 vote x 60% = 30% + 1 vote

Majority decision Belgium:

50% + 1 vote x 99.34% = 49.67% + 1 vote

In the USA, a minority of voters supports almost all political decisions.

In Belgium, a majority of voters supports almost all political decision.

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"Two very different ideas are usually confounded under the name democracy. The pure idea of democracy, according to its definition, is the government of the whole people by the whole people, equally represented. Democracy as commonly conceived and hitherto practiced is the government of the whole people by a mere majority of the people, exclusively represented. The former is synonymous with the equality of all citizens; the latter, strangely confounded with it, is a government of privilege, in favor of the numerical majority, who alone possess practically any voice in the State. This is the inevitable consequence of the manner in which the votes are now taken, to the complete disfranchisement of minorities."

—John Stuart Mill, Representative Government, 1861