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Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr warned Wednesday that broadcasters could violate their license obligations by airing “entirely fake polls and suppression polls” ahead of the midterm elections.
In a post on X, Carr said there had been a “significant surge” in such polls this cycle, “designed to do nothing more than interfere with the regular functioning of the electoral process,” Reuters reported.
“Many journalists and broadcasters have been amplifying or airing these Polls without regard to basic journalistic ethics,” Carr wrote, according to Deadline. He said broadcasters are barred by their licenses from “News Distortion” and “Broadcast Hoaxes.”
Carr did not name any specific polls or broadcasters. He said stations that want to give viewers more context about polls they covered “can now take those actions consistent with FCC regulations.”
The warning came a day after Wedgewood Polls admitted it had published fabricated data, Forbes reported. The firm called it a social experiment meant to test whether media outlets would verify an unknown pollster.
The New York Times said it removed 15 Wedgewood polls conducted since June from its aggregator, according to Forbes. The firm’s results did not factor into national surveys such as Trump’s approval rating.
Wedgewood’s admission came after the polling site FiftyPlusOne questioned the authenticity of its work, the Michigan Advance reported. FiftyPlusOne said the firm had collected donor money for crowd-funded polls.
Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, who left the state’s Democratic Senate primary in July, said a Wedgewood poll showing her in single digits hurt her campaign. “Donations dried up,” she wrote.
House Speaker Mike Johnson said the episode backed his warnings that polls showing Democrats ahead are wrong. “Ignore the polls, and go vote!” Johnson posted on X, Just the News reported.
FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez, the commission’s lone Democrat, pushed back. “Broadcasters who report publicly available polling data should never be punished when a poll is wrong,” she said.
Gomez added that the FCC’s rules on news distortion and hoaxes “do not apply to a station that reports this data in good faith,” according to Reuters.
A group of former FCC officials, including former chairmen Mark Fowler and Tom Wheeler, called Carr’s warning “yet another truly outrageous attempt to censor and control the information available to Americans,” Deadline reported.
The FCC says on its website that its authority over news content is narrow. Broadcasters face enforcement only if it can be proven they deliberately distorted a factual report; opinions and honest mistakes are not actionable.
Carr has previously floated guidance on polls. President Trump has repeatedly dismissed unfavorable surveys as “rigged” and has urged Carr to act against journalists, including NBC’s Kristen Welker, The Washington Post and Reuters reported.
Major networks did not immediately comment on Carr’s statement, according to Reuters. Election Day is Nov. 3.
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