Fake polls reach US media and trackers ahead of the midterms

Fake surveys listed in one tracker

15 Wedgewood surveys

Wedgewood Polls admitted this month that its surveys of battleground states, including Texas, Ohio and Michigan, were fake. One polling tracker had listed 15 of them between June and October.

A second firm, Median Strategies, admitted in August that it had also faked results. Wedgewood called its work an experiment, but a data journalist who helped investigate it called that an excuse to cover up fraud.

Mallory McMorrow, who suspended her Michigan Senate bid in July, says a Wedgewood poll showing her in the single digits demoralized volunteers and dried up donations. She called it, with another poll, a "one-two punch".

What can be done

No US law criminalizes fake polls outright. The head of the Federal Communications Commission urged broadcasters not to amplify them, while its lone Democratic commissioner said stations reporting data in good faith should not be punished.