MSU’s Yeargain Comments On Fake LA Poll’s Legality

The Los Angeles Times reports that MSU College of Law professor Quinn Yeargain provided expert analysis on whether a fabricated opinion poll in the Los Angeles mayoral race could constitute a crime. Yeargain said the intent behind the fake survey by a group called Median Strategies would be decisive, noting that if the goal was to affect prediction markets, “at a high level what we’re talking about is a lie that is meant to get people to act to their detriment. … We would classically describe that as fraud.” Yeargain, who wrote about fake polls affecting prediction markets in the Missouri Law Review in 2020, argued that publishing fake polls to influence betting markets was either commodities fraud or wire fraud, or both. He added, “Lies like this poll are damaging to the democratic process.”

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