I’ve cast symbolic votes myself when the outcome was a foregone conclusion, but never if I thought that it could result in the most dangerous candidate winning. I agree with you that IL was safely Democrat in the 2004 and 2008 presidential races and that voting for Randy Shufflebeam (wasn’t that the 2004 candidate’s name) or whomever would have no effect on the election in IL. And I’m glad to hear not only that someone like you with your ears on the ground in the Chicago suburbs thinks that IL will be very close this November, but that you will do your part to try to give Obama the biggest embarrassment of his political life by defeating him in IL in a presidential election.
In 2004, the Constitution Party presidential candidate was Michael Peroutka. In 2006, Randy Stufflebeam was a write-in candidate for governor of Illiois. He got about 0.5%, about 23,000 votes, officially. He probably got more votes that weren’t counted because some election judges don’t care about counting write-in votes.