Credit scores are in part based on the oldest line of available credit, which for most people are their student loans. Pay those off, your oldest line of credit becomes something more recent, and your score goes down as a result

Length of credit and credit utilization, you get points* for the length that each account has been open, so when you pay off your loan the account is closed and no longer counts. Also as you get to the end of the repayment it shows as a $30k account that you owe les than $10k on, you get points for using less than half or less than a third of the credit available to you.

*You don't actually get points, that would be too easy to understand, you get factors that affect a complex equation in your favor.

It decreases your overall available credit

Okay. But if the people you vote for can only muster 3% of the vote, how does that help?

I get it in local elections, up to and including State legislature, gubernatorial races, and maybe Congress if they can get a good campaign going. That all makes sense because even if they don't win they get enough attention to attract local media and push discussion among others.

But Senators? The President? Ross Perot was an extreme outlier. The last time a 3rd party presidential candidate got more than 50 electoral votes was 1912 when Teddy Roosevelt ran as a Progressive. In the last century, the highest total electoral votes for a 3rd part went to George Wallace in 1968 running as an American Independent. He got 46 out of 538. Rounding up, that's 9%.

Now, without looking him up, tell me one issue George Wallace ran on in 1968.

So I'm asking: how does it help. If it helps, I'll try. But from where I'm sitting, it's all hopeless. I don't want to feel this way. So please, for the love of sanity, convince me.