Fake election polls expose a Kalshi loophole that could leave traders paying for fraud

Polling firm Wedgewood admitted on Oct. 20 that it fabricated most of its election surveys, and VoteHub, one of the aggregators that carried its results, is also the data source for recurring Kalshi contracts.Kalshi's September 2025 regulatory filing names VoteHub as the source agency for those contracts and states that “revisions to the Underlying made after Expiration will not be accounted for in determining the Expiration Value.”The two facts raise a question about what happens to a settled contract when the polling number behind it is later withdrawn or found false.Researchers at FiftyPlusOne requested raw data from Wedgewood's Mississippi Senate survey and found inconsistencies in respondent identifiers and transaction records. They commissioned a comparison survey through the same provider, Pollfish, and its records looked materially different.Wedgewood then admitted the fabrication while describing one Nebraska poll as legitimate. VoteHub's head of data science, Zachary Donnini, said he spoke with a Wedgewood representative before including the firm's polling, and that VoteHub graded Wedgewood a D and incorporated its data anyway.The Guardian reported that VoteHub was among ...