Free and fair elections, the foundation of our democracy, face an unprecedented array of threats as the next one approaches. While some of these threats are well-known, others go largely unnoticed, with potentially serious consequences. Among the latter is a dangerous attempt to persuade one of our financial regulators to essentially authorize gambling on election results.
You might expect such a question to be answered by the Federal Election Commission, the agency with the expertise, history and authority to regulate elections. But a financial services company in fact petitioned an obscure financial regulatory agency to allow betting on elections through the commodities market, a prospect that could unleash a torrent of misinformation and harm investors for no discernible purpose.
