It isn’t necessarily a crime to lie or do a hoax, and a fake poll by itself is probably well within the lines of free speech. The fraud question comes into it for two possible cases:
1) someone might have paid them to do a real poll and they faked it, which is just straightforward fraud with a clear victim.
2) (the fun one) they might have done it to manipulate political prediction markets, which gets into securities fraud questions.
1) someone might have paid them to do a real poll and they faked it, which is just straightforward fraud with a clear victim.
2) (the fun one) they might have done it to manipulate political prediction markets, which gets into securities fraud questions.