You are absolutely right, of course, Villan, but that still seems to me to be a poor use of voting.

Back in the days that people tried to have witty default signatures on emails, one of the favourites I received was something like:

"XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Please find enclosed your lifetime supply of democracy"

Voting someone into power in a local election to send a message to someone else, while ignoring what the person you elected actually wants to do seems to me to waste one of the very few Xs we really have. Your view may, of course, differ.