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In CBC's poll tracker at: https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/elections/poll-tracker/canada/, probabilities of winning the 2019 Canadian federal election are provided.

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Currently, these are 11% Liberal majority, 39% Liberal minority, 42% Conservative minority, and 6% Conservative majority. By my count, these probabilities add up to 98%. Shouldn't this be 100%?

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I don't see any explanation on their Full Methodology Info page, but when percentages don't add up to 100%, the usual answer is that it's due to rounding, so 11% might actually be 11.4%, which was rounded down to 11. Among 4 options, rounding could explain almost all of the missing 2%.

Another possibility, is that these 4 options don't represent all possibilities. For example, it's possible that the Liberals and Conservatives get equal numbers of seats, but neither has a majority (due to seats gained by other parties)

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  • Indeed, I can see the extra 1-2% being a tie.
    – Joe C
    Commented Oct 15, 2019 at 18:10
  • I thought of a third party (such as the NDP) winning as a possibility for making up the 1-2%, but that seems to be ruled out by the fact that their maximum projected seats is only 60. The possibility of a rounding down or a tie makes sense though. Thanks.
    – Jimmy Vailer
    Commented Oct 15, 2019 at 19:09

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