The problem with these private firms is that their specific methods and algorithms are proprietary. If you believe in the free market then competition between them means that they all want to have that one magic formula that is the most accurate. They tend to be so.
The CBC Tracker strategy is owned by a private firm ?
In any case, all statistical projections are just that. The formula is accurate, it’s just that the formula includes a measure of unaccounted variance. We can never know how big that’s going to be. And as I said earlier, it’s a moving target. Polls are publish and people react to them, which then changes the results as soon as it’s announced. Each poll taken is simply a snapshot in time using the best prediction method available. They try to translate it into riding projections but it’s still fundamentally based on popular vote. Seats are won by popular vote, except on a riding by riding basis, whilst the polling typically contacts about 1200 people across different riding. Why’re pretty good at inferring ridings from that most of the time, but it’s obviously imperfect. Incumbents tend to be sticky, so they account for that. Start power also helps candidates, so they try to account for that. Voter fatigue can play a role, so they also try to account for that. Then there’s demographic composition of the riding and how peopemwith those characteristics usually vote. So there’s a lot they consider.
Sure, but perfect is the opposite of good. That is to say: just because predictions can't be perfect doesn't mean we should not talk about accuracy. Such discussions are part of fomenting a reasonable public IMO, since these tools are used to rationalize policy.
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