Officials Bar Election Staff From Prediction Markets — SkimNews
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- Maricopa County, Arizona adopted a July resolution banning roughly 13,000 county employees from trading on non-public information including elections, weather events, and court hearings, driven by supervisor Thomas Galvin
- Delaware County, Pennsylvania barred approximately 2,200 employees from prediction market contracts tied to elections, with elections director James Allen calling prediction markets "the newest and most existential threat to undermining faith in the elections"
- Maryland's administrator of elections sent a July letter to the state prosecutor requesting an investigation into whether prediction market election contracts violate state law prohibiting wagers on election outcomes
- Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs signed an executive order banning state workers from insider trading on prediction markets shortly before the Maricopa resolution
- Los Angeles County registrar Dean Logan reported that when early returns in the mayoral race diverged from prediction market expectations, observers directed threats at canvassing staff at levels "we haven't seen in prior elections"
- Kalshi and Polymarket declined to directly address election officials' concerns; Polymarket argued states lack legal jurisdiction to regulate prediction markets while both said they already have insider-trading measures
Why it matters: With frontline election administrators now publicly branding them an existential threat to election integrity, prediction markets gain powerful new opponents in the regulatory fight between states and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission over event-contract oversight. The LA mayoral episode gives those officials a concrete case: a divergence between ballot counts and market odds already triggered threats against election workers.
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