However futile voting may be... and Chomsky did use that word.... his point actually seems to be that slogans representing or suggesting policies that are against voters' interests nevertheless "reverberate" with them and are met with their applause and approval. Or alternately put, politicians and policies are often very popular with many people whose interests they harm or whose professed desires they contradict. Chomsky's example of the latter is that people want Welfare cut or eliminated, but they want government to help needy people.

I believe that Chomsky is demonstrating that the corporate propaganda system leads people to believe they are making rational productive political statements with their vote irrespective of the issue of whether there is the possibility of doing so in actuality. The point is to give the status quo ligitimacy.

At the level of actually productive voting within the quadrennial minimal democratic system, Chomsky suggests looking as briefly as is needed at the local realities and voting accordingly. If your state is a close race between a poor Democrat but a terrible Republican, then you know what you should do, briefly, before you devote most of your spare energies in grass-root movement building.

If your state is decided, then hopefully there is a decent third party candidate you can vote for, by way of protest, then devote the majority of your spare time movement building.

Mark Weber, I believe you meant "help people in need" rather than "help needy people". 

I also believe that contradictions such as wanting the rich to pay more taxes, but voting Republican is due to a poor general level of political culture, whereby opinion is cherry-picked, often from dominant media and opinion sources, and welded together with little reasoning or resolution behind it. A culture of opinion over argument and debate helps to reinforce this process, one fostered by the idea of consumption and product (which car? which philosophy?) choice as components of identity.