re: Sensing a little bit of unease from Nate Silver today

there's 1 clear example of bad input to a 538 model: the 2016 presidential election. they've proven to do a good job predicting results over the last decade.

538 has never tried to be "wrong" or "right", just apply probabilities. They also never give 0 because it's impossible to give zero, the mathematics of probability prevent a 0% chance in an election based on people voting when they haven't asked every single one the voters. They don't avoid saying 0 to avoid being wrong, it's just math.