It might be the least effective especially for those not in swing states, but it certainly isn’t the least important.
And as far as “not a democracy” the NPVIC isn’t that many states away from effectively rendering the problems with the electoral college moot. Certainly a steep uphill battle though.
If voters actually turned out for primaries/elections there would be much better candidates. So your argument becomes “nobody else does it, and because of that the system is broken, and so I won’t do it either”.
It seems like people get caught up in the media hype on the presidential election and forget that some of the most important change needs to start from the bottom up, and a couple of. votes can make a huge difference in State levels, and congressional/senate elections. A president is worthless without a Congress/senate passing laws that actually matter.
Just look at what Minnesota has been able to with voter reform in the last year with their very narrow trifecta. I.e law went into effect this year that allows residents to sign up to automatically receive absentee ballots for every election/primary in their area. A minor improvement, but an important one. Guaranteed that there will be folks that wouldn’t bother to vote on non-presidential elections that will be now.
They also added a “right to be absent from work to vote” which gives Minnesotans the ability to vote without using any sort of vacation/leave time without losing pay. Full list of other rather import changes here
Things like that can snowball into a larger shift at the state level.
The state has no need for you to legitimize them. Even if the system is weighted against you every vote still has power, and the only thing that not voting accomplishes is sending a message that you are okay with the system as it is. There are plenty of politicians out there that want change to happen, and they can’t do it without enough votes behind them.