A grassroots campaign sounds like a significant expenditure of effort compared to voting and casual conversation about the issues. Perhaps maximizing our influence on the votes of others is not the only consideration, and voting hits a sweet spot which returns acceptable values for “(potentially) having an effect”, “not too time consuming”, and “improves my self-image”.
You’re right about setting aside some time for research, though; it’d be nice if we maximized potential effect in the correct direction :P
Because if you’re considering disobeying orders, it is presumably because you think you WILL be vindicated by events (regardless of the actual likelihood of that transpiring). Therefore, punishing only people who turn out to be wrong fails to sufficiently discourage anybody who actually should be discouraged :P