I wrote a short advocacy piece for Jill Stein (and 3rd parties in general) for voters in safe Red or Blue states (it's tailored to CA since it's where I live) that I thought I would share. The core of the argument is math, although there are certainly a million good moral reasons (but we really have to tailor our arguments to who we are trying to convince, and those are people afraid that if they vote for anything other than Clinton, Trump will be elected):

Do you live in a safe red or blue state? Were you incredibly frustrated by some of the stunts that were pulled during the Democratic primaries, or does the message of Bernie Sanders really resonate with you? Do you want to fight for ending our seemingly endless wars, truly fighting climate change, destroying systemic racial discrimination, If you answered yes to first question and yes to any question after that, please, please, please read what I’ve written below as the math purely shows that for those in a safe red or blue state, the only way to make your truly count is to vote third party. Contrary to popular opinion, the math shows that literally any other vote is just a protest vote (my apologies for the length, but I wanted to be thorough, and considering the importance of the election, it’s pretty short! Let’s be fair, when it comes to deciding who should be the most powerful elected person in the world, anything important shorter than 2 pages is not TLDR):

So I’ve heard a lot about uniting together to defeat Donald Trump, but what does this really mean in terms of voting? The reality is that the President will be determined by votes in a handful of swing states. While I wish the Electoral College had been discarded years ago, we seem to still be stuck with it. If you are in a solid blue or solid red Electoral state, voting for Clinton will basically be window dressing or a feather in her cap. Take CA for instance. Currently, 538.com, generally agreed to be run by one of the most accurate poll aggregators, has Hillary winning CA 99.7% of the time (Reference 1). CA is the largest state in the nation, and as of this moment, there is no small, super read state that 538.com where Donald Trump has a higher predicted win percentage. Per both Jerry Brown (Democratic governor of CA) and Kevin McCarthy (one of the top Republicans in the House and a CA rep), pigs will probably fly before Trump could take CA (R2).

In 2012, 60% of voters in CA went for Barack Obama (7.8 million) while Mitt Romney got 37% (4.8 million). The numbers in 2008 were relatively similar (Obama got 8.2 million and John McCain got 5 million) (R3). The polls now show a similar break down in terms of percentages. Hillary Clinton will win in CA. Hillary will get the majority of Obama’s voters (of those who will vote at least); I suspect that the rate of attrition of voters will effect both sides equally given how unpopular both main party candidates are. Assuming that this would be the case, you would need almost 25% of voters in CA (not just 25% of Obama voters. 25% of all voters) to switch from Hillary to Jill Stein and nearly 0% to switch from Trump to Gary Johnson for Hillary to lose CA. This would be completely unprecedented in American politics; simply put, barring some major scandal, it’s just not going to happen, especially considering that Gary Johnson is already polling several points higher than Stein. 3 million Obama voters in CA (almost half!) are not going to switch over to Jill Stein. As such, if you are in CA, whether you vote for Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump or a third party candidate, you will not be able to effect who is elected President by voting. However, you can use your vote to make a major difference in our political landscape.

If Jill Stein (or Gary Johnson) can capture 5% of the votes nationally, they get a good chunk of extra funding and potential automatic infrastructure benefits (including having the Green/Libertarian parties be included on certain state ballots next time around. This is critical because both parties have to spend a lot of time trying to get signatures to even be allowed on the Presidential ballots). There are other additional benefits at higher levels as well (15% polling for example allows them to take place in the debates). (R4) We know that in politics, money talks. Our current system is designed to keep third party candidates down. In order to have a chance, they need name recognition. In order to increase their name recognition, they need money. In order to get money, they need…name recognition. Our debates exemplify this. 15% is an incredibly high margin considering that both Jill Stein and Gary Johnson are on the ballots of enough states to cover over 400 electoral votes. The Commission for Electoral Debates sets that 15% bar, but who runs this commission: Democrats and Republicans (R5). Yes, the very parties that would be weakened by strong third parties are also the ones who determine who gets a spot in debates.

Strengthening third parties is crucial for having a healthy democracy. Right now, we really have a oligarchical duopoly at best. You may not like everything that a third party stands for (but to be honest, the Democratic party has gotten us war, bad trade deals, a bailout for Wall Street, higher rates of mass incarcerations…etc. I suspect that there is at least one item in that list you don’t like, so why only run a purity test for the third party that won’t win? Shouldn’t we be putting the more competitive candidates to a higher standard?), but I’m sure that we all agree that strengthening Democracy is a worthy goal. If your vote can’t decide the President thanks to the Electoral College, it can still serve to help us work towards strengthening our Democracy.

If you really want to get Hillary Clinton elected, phone bank and volunteer in swing states where it counts. Or even better, work to get Gary Johnson’s numbers up. If he can make it to the main debate, he could potentially start pulling off large amounts of additional support from Trump. Regardless, if you live a safe state and you have any interest in creating a healthier Democracy, the most effective way you can use your vote is to vote for a third party candidate.

1: http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/california/#now
2: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/jerry-brown-trump-california-226284
3: http://ivn.us/2012/11/01/why-5-matters-to-gary-johnson/
4: http://elections.cdn.sos.ca.gov/sov/2012-general/ssov/pres-summary-by-co...
5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commission_on_Presidential_Debates