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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
World
Sophie Sullivan, Anna Betts and Sam Levine

Website behind widely shared fake election polls run by 21-year-old

Voters use machines along a wall, with a
Voters cast their ballots on primary election day on 11 August at Richmond Town Hall in Delavan, Wisconsin. Photograph: Kayla Wolf/AP

A 21-year-old recent college graduate was behind an anonymous website that put out widely shared fake election polling in Wisconsin, Nevada and California, the Guardian can reveal.

The website, Median Strategies, abruptly shut down and withdrew its polling earlier this week following questions from a reporter from the Los Angeles Times. In an unsigned statement, it described a “short-term social experiment” to examine how fake polling “could enter and spread through the political information ecosystem without independent verification”.

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