This pollster may have swayed the outcome of an election with knowingly false statements

I don't think that could be proved beyond a reasonable doubt.

Also, you could make an argument that, like, some diner near a polling place doing a special swayed the outcome of an election because it made the area look busy and potential voters decided they didn't have time.

I see the point about needing time for real journalists to blow it open

Actually my point was more about needing more journalists and editors and newsroom support staff so that someone could have looked into this sooner and more aggressively

What happens when the poll with fake data is released only hours before the election?

Probably only a few people see it and it doesn't have much impact

But what we are talking about was intentionally false.

I appreciate the idea of limiting ourselves to people who make intentionally false statements, but when I intentionally say something like "race is a social construct" or "the president is a criminal" the average Republican thinks it's a false statement.

What these people did was super shitty, but I don't see a way to criminalize it without handing fascists a giant weapon to beat loud mouth leftists like me over the head with. I think the best remedy here is we get the names of everyone involved in this and then for the rest of their lives whenever they say anything of consequence we'll be able to say "Oh you're one of those liars who lied to all of us one time, I don't think I believe what you're claiming now."