Comment Text:
I oppose allowing any organization or company to provide betting on elections in any fashion.
In the 2020 election cycle, we saw mistrust of our elections spread like wildfire due to baseless theories about election misconduct, missing ballots, etc. We do not need to give citizens another reason to suspect election manipulation, let alone actually providing a mechanism for manipulation.
Malicious bettors could use artificial intelligence (AI) to create false or misleading videos aimed at changing popular opinion and maximizing their chances of winning a bet
People could intimidate election officials in order to win bets, or harass and accuse them or wrongdoing if the outcome loses them money
Politics is already a team sport, where people root for their party rather than learning about policy. Political betting would only make people even more singularly focused on the success of their party and not what governments are actually doing
The CFTC should not add fuel to the fire of election conspiracy theories or ambush election officials with attacks from highly-motivated bettors.
