What are the key features of a democracy and how does decision making occur?

One of the key features of a democracy are that it has elections which are free and fair, although even in traditional democracies such as the United States and even the UK, the level of freedom and fairness is debateable, due to the influence of Russia and Cambridge Analytica. Other key features of democracy are freedom of the press, the protection of rights and seperation of powers, meaning that the government should be divided into 'the execute', 'the legislative and 'the judicial'.